WhatsApp Banned More Than 2 Million Indian Accounts In September: Report

More than 2.2 million Indian accounts were banned by WhatsApp while 560 grievance reports were received by the messaging platform in September, according to its compliance report.

In its latest report released on Monday, WhatsApp said 2,209,000 Indian accounts on the platform were banned in September.

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

"WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state of the art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform," a WhatsApp spokesperson said.

In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, WhatsApp has published its fourth monthly report for the 30-day period of September 1-30, 2021.

"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," the spokesperson said.

Previously, the Facebook-owned company had stated that more than 95 per cent of the ban was due to the unauthorised use of automated or bulk messaging (spam). The global average number of accounts that WhatsApp bans to prevent abuse on its platform is around 8 million accounts per month.

WhatsApp, in its latest report, said it received 560 user reports spanning across account support (121), ban appeal (309), other support and product support (49 each) and safety (32) during September.
During this period, 51 accounts were actioned based on the reports received.

WhatsApp explained that "Accounts Actioned" denotes remedial action taken based on the reports.
Taking action denotes either banning an account or a previously banned account being restored as a result of the complaint.