WhatsApp banned 2mn Indian accounts during May 15-Jun 15

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ WhatsApp banned two million Indian accounts while it received 345 grievance reports between May 15 and June 15, the company said in its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rules.

The new IT rules require large digital platforms — with over five million users — to publish compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken.

“Our top focus is preventing accounts from sending harmful or unwanted messages at scale. We maintain advanced capabilities to identify these accounts sending a high or abnormal rate of messages and banned two million accounts in India alone from May 15-June 15 attempting this kind of abuse,” WhatsApp said on Thursday.

WhatsApp clarified that more than 95 per cent of such bans are due to the unauthorised use of automated or bulk messaging (spam). “We expect to publish subsequent editions of the report 30-45 days after the reporting period to allow sufficient time for data collection and validation,” WhatsApp said in the report.