WhatsApp banned 20 lakh Indian accounts within a month
Facebook-owned WhatsApp has banned over two million Indian accounts for abusing the platform’s services between May 15 and June 15, the company said in its first compliance report published under new IT Rules.
The company further stated that it was planning to publish this report every 30-45 days from hereon.
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The company stated that the abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle. These are at registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback. The company receives these in the form of user reports and blocks.
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The analysts augment these systems to evaluate edge cases and further help improve the effectiveness, the company added. Indian WhatsApp accounts are registered with the suffix +91.
As per the report, the company’s grievance officer received a total of 345 requests during the period including 70 account support queries, 204 appeals to a ban, 20 other support queries, 43 product support queries and 8 pertaining to user safety issues. The company took action in 63 of these requests.
However, the company didn’t disclose how many information requests it received from the government. As of now, WhatsApp is fighting a case against the government of India, opposing the traceability clause in new IT Rules. It requires platforms to trace the first originator of a message within the country.
Significant social media intermediaries are required to publish monthly compliance reports under India’s new IT Rules.
-PTC News
