WhatsApp bans 69 lakh bad accounts in India, here's why

WhatsApp shared its monthly compliance report recently. As per the report, the Meta-owned social media app banned a record over 69 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of December 2023, in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021. Also Read: 7 WhatsApp Tips And Tricks You Wish You Knew Earlier

The exact figure shared by the company is “6,934,000 accounts”. WhatsApp banned these many accounts in the period between December 1-31. Also Read: Lost In Group Chats? WhatsApp For Android Is Testing Message Threads To Help

Out of these, WhatsApp proactively banned 1,658,000 of these accounts, i.e. before any reports from users. The company received over 16,366 complaint reports in the month of December in India. These reports include ban appeals from the following categories –  product support, account support, safety, other support, and safety. The total records “actioned” were 13, as per the report.

“Accounts Actioned” denotes reports where WhatsApp took remedial action based on the report and taking action denotes either banning an account or a previously banned account being restored as a result.

“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,” according to the company.

In a bid to empower millions of Indian social media users, the Centre recently launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) which looks into their concerns regarding content and other issues. The panel will look into appeals by users against decisions of social media platforms.

“We are an industry leader among end-to-end encrypted messaging services in preventing and combating abuse. In addition to our safety features and controls, we employ a team of engineers, data scientists, analysts, researchers, and experts in law enforcement, online safety, and technology developments to oversee these efforts,” stated WhatsApp in the compliance report.

While the banned accounts for December seem high, it is to be noted that the company banned over 71 lakh bad accounts in November in India. It received 8,841 reports and it actioned 6 of the accounts, as per a previous compliance report.

In other news about WhatsApp, it is working on several features for its users. Some of these are privacy and security-related like the Chat Lock feature. WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature for the web client. The feature was spotted in the ‘under development’ stage and should be released for the stable app soon.

The web client’s Chat Lock feature will work the same way it does on the mobile app. It lets users lock individual chats with a passcode or Face ID.

— Written with inputs from IANS