Messaging platform WhatsApp on Saturday said that it banned 23.28 lakh accounts of Indian users for misusing the application’s services in August.
The accounts were banned by based on complaints received via its grievance redressal channel and through its own mechanism to detect violations.
The company made the declaration in its monthly compliance report as mandated under the new Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The rule requires social media platforms with more than 50 lakh users in India to publish compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken.
In July, the messaging platform had banned 23.87 lakh users. Prior to this, 23.87 lakh accounts were banned in July, 22 lakh in June, and 19 lakh in May.
In Saturday’s report, WhatsApp said that out of the total accounts blocked in August, 10.08 lakh were banned ‘proactively’ by the messaging platform before any reports were received from users.
“In addition to responding to and actioning on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behaviour on the platform,” the messaging platform said. “We are particularly focused on prevention because we believe it is much better to stop harmful activity from happening in the first place than to detect it after harm has occurred.”
WhatsApp added that it had received 598 grievance reports between August 1 and August 31. Out of these, action was taken against 19 accounts.
Of the total reports received, 449 pertained to ‘ban appeal’ while others were in the categories of account support, product support and safety, among others.
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