New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS): Facebook's parent company Meta on Tuesday denied a claim by the Kazakhstan government that it has been given direct access to Facebook's content reporting system.

In a statement, the government expressed confidence that the use of the 'Content Reporting System' will increase the efficiency and overall effectiveness of the work carried out to counter the spread of illegal content on the Facebook and Instagram platforms.

A Meta spokesperson told IANS that the company has a dedicated online channel for governments around the world to report content to them that they believe violates local law.

"We follow a consistent global process to assess individual requests - independent from any government - in line with Facebook's policies, local laws and international human rights standards. This process is the same in Kazakhstan as it is for other countries around the world," the Meta spokesperson said.

In an earlier joint statement, the Kazakhstan government had quoted Facebook's Regional Public Policy Director, George Chen, as saying: "We are delighted to provide the 'Content Reporting System' to the Government of Kazakhstan, which we hope can help the government to deal with harmful content in a more efficient and effective manner".

The KazakhA overnment, however, released its own statement, independent from Facebook, and included correspondence between the company and the Kazakh government on its process for government requests and the training the social network provides to governments using the system.

Facebook continues to battle allegations led by whistleblower Frances Haugen and others over users' data privacy and presence of misinformation on its platforms.