WhatsApp bans over 16.6 lakh bad accounts in India in April

Meta-owned WhatsApp on Wednesday said that it banned over 16.6 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of April in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021.

The platform had banned over 18 lakh such accounts in the country in March.

The company also received 844 grievance reports in April within the country, and the accounts "actioned" were 123.

In March, WhatsApp received 597 grievance reports and the accounts "actioned" were 74.

"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. As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 1.6 million (1,666,000) accounts in the month of April," a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.

The company said that data shared highlights the number of Indian accounts banned by WhatsApp between April 1-30 using the abuse detection approach, which also includes action taken in furtherance to negative feedback received from users via its "Report" feature.

"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," the company added.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.