WhatsApp has banned over 11 million Indian accounts since May

Meta owned messaging platform WhatsApp has banned over 11 million Indian users from its platform since May this year, the company's monthly compliance report revealed today. In the December version of the report, the company said that it had banned 2,069,000 accounts during the month of October. The company publishes monthly compliance reports under the Indian government’s new Intermediary Guidelines (IT Rules). It started publishing these reports from May 15, 2021.

The October tally brings the total number of banned accounts on the platform to 11,386,000. The messaging platform has been banning around two million accounts per month in India, based on the reports it has published so far. It had banned over 3 million accounts between June 16 and July 31 this year.

WhatsApp bans accounts that violate its terms of service, like spending bulk spam messages etc. Users can also report accounts to WhatsApp if they think they have violated the platform’s rules. The company bans an average of 8 million accounts per month globally.

“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 in its compliance report.

In the most recent version of the report, WhatsApp also said that it had received 500 grievance requests from users, and actioned 18 of them. Accounts Actioned includes all cases where the company took remedial action to a grievance, including banning an account or repealing a ban.