WhatsApp Bans Over 7.4 Million Accounts In India In August To Stop Harmful Activity

More than 7.4 million accounts in India were barred on WhatsApp in August, marking an increase from the month before, the Meta-owned company said in a report Sunday.

The instant messaging app, which is extremely popular in India with over 500 million users, said the accounts faced punitive action following grievances from users and violations of the laws of India or WhatsApp's terms of service.

The report said 7,420,748 WhatsApp accounts were banned in August, and of them, 3,506,905 were proactively barred even before users sent negative feedback by reporting, blocking or other means.

August saw nearly 200,000 more accounts being barred in comparison to the month before. The previous monthly report, released in September, revealed that 7,228,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned in July, and 3,108,000 of them were proactively banned.

According to the user safety report, the messaging platform not only responds to and takes action on user complaints but also uses tools and resources "to prevent harmful behavior on the platform."

"We are particularly focused on prevention because we believe it is much better to stop harmful activity from happening in the first place than to detect it after harm has occurred," read the report. "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."

WhatsApp said it received only one order from India's Grievance Appellate Committee in August and had complied with it. The GAC was formed recently to provide grievance redressal avenues for social media users.

The committee was created as a response to the large number of grievances left unaddressed or addressed unsatisfactorily by social media intermediaries (SSMIs) and to ensure that the "constitutional rights of Indian citizens are not contravened by any Big-tech platform," officials said.