WhatsApp Banned Over 2 Mn Indian Accounts In December 2021

In its monthly India report for December, WhatsApp said that the ban was in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021.

WhatsApp| Photo: Getty

New Delhi: Social networking site WhatsApp banned over 2 million Indian accounts in December 2021, while  528 grievance reports were received by the messaging platform. 

In its monthly India report for December, WhatsApp said that the ban was in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021.

"In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we have published our seventh monthly report for the month of December," said a spokesperson of the company.

The spokesperson further said, "As captured in the latest monthly report, WhatsApp banned over 2 million accounts in the month of December." 

According to the new IT rules of the Indian government, large digital platforms having over 5 million users are to publish compliance reports every month. The report should mention details of complaints received and action taken.

The data shared by WhatsApp of banned Indian accounts from December 1 to December 31 uses the abuse detection approach of the company.

"The data shared below highlights the number of Indian accounts banned by WhatsApp between December 1, 2021-December 31, 2021 using the abuse detection approach, which also includes action taken in furtherance to negative feedback received from users via our "Report" feature. We will continue to bring more transparency to our work and include more information about our efforts in future reports," the company report stated.

Other than behavioural signals from accounts, WhatApps relies on a host of other things like unencrypted information, including user reports, profile photos, group photos and advanced AI tools

The new number of the banned accounts is a huge jump from the 17 lakh accounts banned by WhatsApp in November 2021. While in October and September 2021, the banned accounts stood at 20 lakhs and 22 lakhs, respectively.