WhatsApp says it banned 29 lakh Indian accounts in January

WhatsApp said that it took action on accounts through its prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of India or WhatsApp's Terms of Service.

WhatsApp banned 29 lakh Indian accounts in the month of January, the microblogging platform said in its user safety monthly report released today. The India monthly report is released on the first day of every month in accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

WhatsApp said the report contains details of actions taken by it in response to grievances received from users in India through the official grievance mechanism.

A petition was filed by two individuals challenging the WhatsApp’s deal with Meta to provide access to calls, photographs, texts, videos, and documents shared by users. (Bloomberg) (MINT_PRINT)

The social media giant said that it took action on accounts through its prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of India or WhatsApp's Terms of Service.

“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 stated.

WhatsApp said it deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behaviour on its platform. The social media giant said it is particularly focussed on prevention as it believes in stopping a harmful activity from happening in the first place.

“The abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle: at registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback, which we receive in the form of user reports and blocks. A team of analysts augments these systems to evaluate edge cases and help improve our effectiveness over time”, it stated.