WhatsApp Bans Over 98 Lakh Indian Accounts in One Go, Major Crackdown Reported

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): According to the latest India Monthly Report of chatting app WhatsApp, the company banned more than 98 lakh accounts in India during June as part of its efforts to prevent abuse and harmful activities on the platform. The report said that about 19.79 lakh of these accounts were banned proactively even before any complaint was received from the users.

Apart from banning accounts, WhatsApp also acted on complaints received from users in India. During the month, the platform received 23,596 complaints, of which action was taken against 1,001 accounts. These actions included banning accounts or restoring previously banned accounts after reviewing the complaints. The majority of complaints were related to ban appeals, of which 16,069 such cases were reported, of which action was taken against 756 accounts.

According to the report, the second category included account support, product support and security issues. WhatsApp said that the company's abuse detection system works in three stages - during account registration, during messaging, and with negative feedback such as user reports and blocks.

The company further said that 'prevention' is its main focus, as preventing harmful activity before it occurs is more effective than detecting it later. Emphasizing its commitment to user safety, the platform said that the company uses end-to-end encryption, safety tools and dedicated teams to deal with abuse, misinformation and security threats.

The messaging platform said in the report that the company works closely with experts to promote cybersecurity and protect election integrity. Last month, messaging platform WhatsApp introduced two new tools 'Status Ads' and 'Promoted Channels'.

According to WABetaInfo, Status ads work like Instagram Story ads. Now, business accounts can post paid content that will appear in WhatsApp users' status updates. These ads will appear among the status updates of friends and family, with a sponsored label so people can easily identify them as ads.