Mumbai: WhatsApp has confirmed that it banned over 20 lakh accounts in December in its latest compliance report in accordance with the new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021 (IT Rules, 2021). The new banned accounts figure is massive compared to November 2021 wherein 17 lakh Indian accounts were banned.
The messaging platform says that these reports contain information on actions taken by WhatsApp in response to grievances received from users in India via the grievance mechanisms of WhatsApp and accounts actioned in India through prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of India or WhatsApp’s Terms of Service.
The latest report was based on the information for the period from December 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. During the month, WhatsApp received a total of 528 grievance reports. WhatsApp confirmed that it banned a total of 20,79,000 accounts in India. WhatsApp identifies an account as Indian via a +91 phone number.
The company stated in its latest report that, “The data shared below highlights the number of Indian accounts banned by WhatsApp between December 1, 2021-December 31, 2021 using the abuse detection approach, which also includes action taken in furtherance to negative feedback received from users via our “Report” feature. We will continue to bring more transparency to our work and include more information about our efforts in future reports.”
WhatsApp’s abuse detection works at three stages of an account’s lifestyle – at registration, during messaging and in response to negative feedback. The platform adds that feedback can be received in the form of user reports and blocks.
“A team of analysts augments these systems to evaluate edge cases and help improve our effectiveness over time,” the company further added.
Much like December 2021, WhatsApp banned over 20 lakh Indian accounts on the platform in October 2021. The number of banned accounts was over 22 lakh Indian accounts in September 2021. While in August 2021, WhatsApp again banned a total of 20,70,000 Indian accounts on the platform. From June 16 to July 31, WhatsApp banned over 30 lakh accounts in India.
