Facebook’s own messaging platform WhatsApp has announced that it has suspended over 3 million Indian accounts in the 46 days from June 16 to July 31.
The company received 137 account support reports, one of which was prosecuted, and 316 requests to lock accounts, the messaging giant said in its second compliance report under the new IT rules in 2021.
“Indian accounts that have violated Indian law or WhatsApp’s Terms of Use through our prevention and detection methods and received user reports or complaints via 2 channels email to grievance_officer_wa@support.whatsapp.com regarding violations of WhatsApp’s Terms of Use or Questions about accounts on WhatsApp that were published in the Help Center or emails that the India Grievance Officer received in the mail, “the company said in a statement.
All complaints received from users in India through the complaint mechanisms will be assessed and responded to.
Overall, more than 95 percent of these bans in India are due to the unauthorized use of automated or bulk messages (“spam”). These numbers have also increased significantly since 2019 because our systems are more and more sophisticated, according to the company.
In its first compliance report, which covered the period between May 15 and June 15, WhatsApp stated that it had banned 2 million Indian users.
In July, search engine giant Google announced that it had removed over 1.5 lakh of content, over 98 percent of which was copyrighted, based on complaints it received in May and June.
