India: 71 lakh WhatsApp accounts banned in September

WhatsApp, which has over 500 million users in India, received another record 10,442 complaint reports in September in the country, and the records "actioned" were 85

New Delhi: Meta-owned WhatsApp banned a record over 71 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of September, in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021. Between September 1-30, the company banned “71,11,000 accounts”.

About 25,71,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users, WhatsApp said in its monthly compliance report. The most popular messaging platform, which has over 500 million users in the country, received another record 10,442 complaint reports in September in the country, and the records “actioned” were 85.

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“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.

Moreover, the company received six orders from the Grievance Appellate Committee in the country in September, and complied with it. 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 newly-formed panel, a move to strengthen the country’s digital laws to tame the Big Tech companies, 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,” said WhatsApp.