New Delhi: Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Thursday released its first monthly grievance redressal report, as mandated under the new IT norms. In the report, the popular Messenger app reported that in the period from May 15 to June 15, India alone banned 2 million accounts that were attempting to send harmful or unwanted messages on a large scale.
The company explained in a statement that more than 95 percent of such restrictions are due to unauthorized use of automated or bulk messaging.
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In the report, as per India’s Arbitration Guidelines, 2021, WhatsApp said that user reports received by the platform through complaint channels are evaluated and responded to.
“Our top focus is preventing accounts from sending harmful or unwanted messages on a large scale. We maintain advanced capabilities to identify these accounts sending high or unusual rates of messages and from May 15 to June 15 in India alone Till date 20 lakh accounts making such attempts have been banned. Misuse,” the company informed.
“The majority of users who reach out to us aim to either have their account banned or reinstated after reaching out for product or account support,” it added.
It was reported that WhatsApp received a total of 345 reports across categories like ban appeal, account support, product support, security issues and more.
Against this, 63 accounts were “actioned” by WhatsApp during the period from May 15 to June 15.
The popular Messenger app revealed that the number of banned accounts has increased significantly since 2019 as the sophistication of the system has increased, and “so we are catching more accounts, regardless of whether we believe that bulk or automated messaging” There are more attempts to send”.
It added that most of these accounts are actively banned based on no user reports as about 8 million accounts are banned/disabled globally on an average per month.
In addition to behavioral cues from accounts, WhatsApp relies on “unencrypted information” available on its platform, including user reports, profile photos, group photos and descriptions, as well as advanced AI tools and resources to identify and prevent abuse.
‘Accounts Actioned’ means those reports where the Platform took remedial action based on the report. This can include both banning an account based on a complaint and reinstating a previously banned account.
The IT rules, which went into effect on May 26, mandated critical digital platforms to include specific communication links or parts of information that they actively remove using automated tools.
Under these rules, social media companies are required to remove content flagged for nudity and pornography within 36 hours, and content flagged for nudity and pornography within 24 hours.
Social media giants will have to mandatorily appoint three key personnel which include the Grievance Officer, Chief Compliance Officer and Nodal Officer. These officers must be resident in India.
Platforms lose intermediary status as a result of non-compliance with IT regulations which gives them immunity from liabilities on any third-party data hosted by them.
(with agency input)
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