WhatsApp is reported to have banned 17.59 lakh Indian accounts in the month of November under IT Rules 2021, according to a compliance report submitted by the company. It also received 602 grievance complaints from India in the same month and took action on 36 of them. Taking action means either suspending an account or restoring a previously banned account as a result of the complaint. The firm has issued its sixth monthly report for November in compliance with the IT Rules 2021.
The company stated that more than 95% of bans are due to the unauthorized use of automated messages or spam. In a similar move, over 20 lakh Indian accounts were banned, while 500 grievance reports were received by the messaging platform in October. The company informed that Indian accounts are identified by +91 phone numbers used to register on the messaging platform.
An official statement by a WhatsApp spokesperson said, ‘In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we’ve published our sixth monthly report for the month of November. 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.’
“WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state-of-the-art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform,” the spokesperson further added.
The Meta-owned company has reiterated that it is striving to ensure more transparency to its work and include more information about its endeavours in future reports. Mollifying privacy concerns of its users, WhatsApp had said that being an end-to-end encrypted platform, it has no visibility into the content of any messages.
WhatsApp informed that among the 602 grievance complaints received during November 2021, 149 were for account support, 357 for ban appeal, 21 for other support, 48 for product support and 27 were for safety. From these complaints, actions were taken against 36 accounts under the ban appeal category. The company explained that action taken in this regard means banning accounts or restoring already banned accounts.
Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
The new IT Rules 2021, which were notified in February and came into effect in May, require large social media platforms (with over 50 lakh users) to publish compliance reports every month, giving the details of complaints received and action taken. The IT Rules 2021 seek to address the concerns of the citizens without infringing on their privacy and personal liberties, while maintaining digital sovereignty at the same time.
