WhatsApp banned over 20 Lakh Indian accounts between May 15 and June 15

Mangalore Today News Network / NDTV

New Delhi, Jul 15, 2021: More than 20 lakh WhatsApp accounts were banned between May 15 and June 15 in India to prevent online abuse and keep users safe, the Facebook-owned instant messaging platform said on Thursday in its monthly compliance report.

 

The report, mandated with the country’s new Information Technology Rules, has to list details of actions taken by social media and communication platforms like WhatsApp and Twitter.

"We consistently invest in technology, people and processes to keep our users safe and secure... 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 2 million accounts in India alone from May 15 - June 15 attempting this kind of abuse," WhatsApp said.

"WhatsApp [...] deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behaviour 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," it added."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," the company said.