WhatsApp Closes 23 Lakh Accounts In India In October
Instant messaging and voice-over-IP service WhatsApp on Wednesday said the company closed more than 23 lakh accounts in the month of October, according to a WhatsApp spokesperson. In another statement, it said as many as 811,000 of these 23 lakh accounts were banned, before any reports from users.
A WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement, “WhatsApp is the industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have been investing in Artificial Intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies, data scientists and experts, and in processes, to protect users ours are safe on our platform.”
The spokesperson said, “In accordance with the IT Act 2021, we have published our report for the month of October 2022. This report on user security contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp’s actions to prevent and combat harassment in our environment .”
As captured in the latest monthly report, WhatsApp closed more than 23 million accounts in the month of October, according to the spokesperson.
In a statement released by the company, 26,85,000 WhatsApp accounts were blocked from sending instant messages between September 1 and 30 this year. About 872,000 of these accounts were permanently banned, before any reports from users.
According to the company’s statement, in addition to responding and taking action on user complaints through the complaints channel, WhatsApp has also released tools and resources to prevent harmful behavior on the platform. It said, “We are very focused on prevention because we believe it is better to stop dangerous things from happening in the first place than to see the harm after it has happened.”
It said abuse detection works in three stages of the account’s lifecycle: At registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback, which we receive through user reports and bans.
A statement from WhatsApp said that the analysis team is adding these systems to test critical situations and help improve our performance over time.
