WhatsApp bans 18 lakh Indian accounts in March: Know why?

The digital messaging platform WhatsApp banned 18.05 lakh Indian accounts in March, according to a monthly report provided by the company. The action was taken on the basis of complaints received from users via the grievances channel and through its own mechanism to prevent and detect violations, as per PTI reported.

The new IT rules require large digital platforms (with over 50 lakh users) to publish compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and actions taken. This new rule came into effect last year, said PTI.

According to the most recent report, WhatsApp banned 18.05 lakh Indian accounts between March 1 to March 31, 2022, utilising the "abuse detection approach, which also includes action taken in furtherance to negative feedback received from users..."

A +91 phone number is used to identify an Indian account.

According to PTI, "This user-safety report contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp's own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform. As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 1.8 million accounts in the month of March," a WhatsApp spokesperson said.

It's worth noting that in February, the Meta-owned messaging network WhatsApp banned 14.26 lakh Indian accounts.

Meanwhile, a WhatsApp spokesperson added that the company has constantly invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state-of-the-art technology, as well as data scientists and experts and processes, to keep users safe throughout time, said PTI.

In March 2022, 597 grievance reports were received, with 74 instances being "actioned."

407 of the total reports received were about a 'ban appeal,' while the rest were for account support, product support, and safety, among other things, PTI said.

"We respond to all grievances received except in cases where a grievance is deemed to be a duplicate of a previous ticket. An account is 'actioned' when an account is banned or a previously banned account is restored, as a result of a complaint," the report said.