Over 1.9 Mn Indian WhatsApp Accounts Banned In May

Meta’s messaging service WhatsApp banned 19,10,000 Indian accounts during May 1-31, 2022. It received a total of 528 grievances in the same period, according to its latest compliance report. Additionally, it received 303 ban appeals.

The grievances included 149 complaints related to account support, 29 regarding other support, 34 about product support and 13 more regarding safety, among others. Out of these, WhatsApp has actioned 24 accounts. ‘Accounts actioned’ denotes corrective measures taken based on the complaints raised.

“The abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle: At registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback, which we receive 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,” WhatsApp said in its report.

All major social media platforms publish monthly compliance reports in accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, also known as the new IT rules, first notified in February 2021.

The report contains information on actions taken by the company in response to the grievances received from users in India via the grievance mechanisms of WhatsApp, the accounts actioned in India through its prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of India or WhatsApp’s terms of service.

WhatsApp banned 1.66 Mn Indian accounts in April this year and more than 1.8 Mn accounts in March.

Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) released a draft amendment of the IT rules 2021. As per the amendment, the ministry has proposed to bring down the 15-day timeline to 72 hours for addressing and resolving complaints about content that is patently false, infringes copyright and threatens India’s integrity.

The government has also proposed to form a grievance appellate committee to allow users to appeal against takedown decisions by grievance officers of social media platforms.