New Delhi: Over 2 million Indian accounts were banned by WhatsApp, while 528 grievance reports were received by the messaging platform in December 2021, according to its compliance report.

In its latest report, WhatsApp said that 20,79,000 Indian accounts were banned on WhatsApp during the said period.

An Indian account is identified via a +91 phone number, he added.

Previously, the Meta-owned company said that more than 95% of bans were due to unauthorized use of automated or mass (spam) messages.

Over 1.75 million Indian accounts were banned by WhatsApp, while 602 grievance reports were received by the messaging platform in November.

WhatsApp in its latest report said it received 528 user reports covering account support (149), ban call (303), other support (29), product support (34 ) and security (13) in December 2021.

During this period, 24 accounts received cumulative “action” in the ban call category (23) and other support (1) based on reports received.

WhatsApp explained that “Accounts Actioned” refers to reports where it took corrective action based on the report.

Taking action means either banning an account or restoring a previously banned account as a result of the complaint.

Additionally, reports may have been reviewed but not included in the “Act” category for many reasons, including the user needing help accessing their account or using certain features, restoring an account banned at the request of the user and the request is denied, or if the reported account does not violate the laws of India or WhatsApp’s Terms of Service.

New IT rules – which came into effect in May last year – require large digital platforms (with over 5 million users) to publish monthly compliance reports, listing details of complaints received and taken measures.

Previously, WhatsApp pointed out that being an end-to-end encrypted platform, it has no visibility into the content of messages.

In addition to account behavioral signals, it leverages available unencrypted information including user reports, profile photos, group photos and descriptions along with advanced AI tools and resources to detect and prevent abuse on its platform, he said.

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