Over two million Indian accounts were prohibited by WhatsApp, whereas five hundred grievance reports were received by the electronic communication platform in the month of October, consistent with its compliance report.
In its latest report released on Mon, WhatsApp said that around 2,069,000 Indian accounts were prohibited on WhatsApp throughout the said period.
An Indian account is known via a 91 phone number, it added.
“WhatsApp is a business leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted electronic communication services. Over the years, we’ve systematically endowed in computer science and alternative progressive technology, information scientists and consultants, and in processes, so as to stay our users safe on our platform,” a WhatsApp spokesperson same.
In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, the platform has revealed its fifth monthly report for the month of October, the company said.
“This user-safety report contains details of the user complaints received and also the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, further as WhatsApp’s own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform. As captured within the latest monthly report, WhatsApp prohibited over two million accounts within the month of October,” the spokesman said.
Previously, the Facebook-owned company had expressed that over ninety five per cent of bans are because of the unauthorised use of machine-controlled or bulk electronic communication (spam). The average number of accounts throughout the world that WhatsApp bans to forestall abuse on its platform is around eight million accounts per month.
Over 2.2 million Indian accounts were prohibited by WhatsApp, whereas 560 grievance reports were received by the electronic communication platform within the month of October.
WhatsApp, in its latest report, said that it received five hundred user reports spanning across account support (146), ban appeal (248), alternative support (42), product support (53), and safety (11) throughout the month of October.
During this period, eighteen accounts were “actioned” below the ban appeal class supporting the reports received.
WhatsApp explained that “Accounts Actioned” denotes reports wherever it took remedial action supporting the report.
Taking action denotes either forbidding an account or a antecedently prohibited account being remodeled as a results of the grievance.
Also, reports might be reviewed however not enclosed as ‘Actioned’ for several reasons, as well as the user needing help to access their account or to use some options, user-requested restoration of a prohibited account and also the request is denied, or if the rumored account doesn’t violate the laws of India or WhatsApp’s Terms of Service.
The new IT rules – that came into impact might need giant digital platforms (with over five million users) to publish compliance reports each month, mentioning the main points of complaints received and action taken.
Previously, WhatsApp had stressed that being an end-to-end encrypted platform, it’s no visibility into the content of any messages.
Besides, the activity signals from accounts, It depends on their unencrypted data, as well as user reports, profile photos, group photos, and descriptions further as advanced AI tools and resources to observe and stop abuse on its platform, it had said.