WhatsApp bans over 66 lakh bad accounts in India in June

The most popular messaging platform, which has over 500 million users in the country, received another record 7,893 complaint reports in June in the country.

New Delhi: Meta-owned WhatsApp banned a record of over 66 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of June, in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021.

Between June 1-30, “6,611,700 WhatsApp accounts were banned and 2,434,200 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users”, WhatsApp said in its monthly compliance report on Tuesday.

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The most popular messaging platform, which has over 500 million users in the country, received another record 7,893 complaint reports in June in the country, and the records “actioned” were 337.

“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 mentioned that the orders received from the Grievance Appellate Committee between June 1 and June 30 was 1, and orders complied with was also 1.

In a bid to empower millions of Indian social media users, the Centre recently launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) that will look 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.

In a major push towards an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’.