Over 22 lakh Indian accounts were banned by Meta-owned WhatsApp, while 632 grievance reports were received by the messaging platform in June 2022, according to its compliance report.

This is the highest number of accounts banned in 2022.

In the report, the messaging platform said 2,210,000 Indian accounts were banned on WhatsApp during the period. An Indian account is identified via a +91 phone number, it added.

WhatsApp said it has received 632 user reports, spanning account support (123), ban appeal (426), other support (32), product support (35), and safety (16) during June 2022.

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During this period, 64 accounts were "actioned" under the ban appeal category based on the reports received. WhatsApp explained that "Accounts Actioned" denotes reports where it took remedial action.

Taking action denotes either banning an account or a previously banned account being restored as a result of the complaint.

"WhatsApp is an industry leader among end-to-end encrypted messaging services in preventing and combating abuse. In addition to our safety features and controls, we employ a team of engineers, data scientists, analysts, researchers, and experts in law enforcement, online safety, and technology developments to oversee these efforts. We enable users to block contacts and to report problematic content and contacts to us from inside the app," the company said.

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"In addition to responding to and actioning on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behavior 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," the company added.

The new IT rules, which came into effect in 2021, require large digital platforms (with over 5 million users) to publish compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and actions taken.

The IT ministry, in June, circulated the draft rules that propose a government panel to hear user appeals against inaction on complaints made, or against content-related decisions taken by grievance officers of social media platforms. At present, "there is no appellate mechanism provided by intermediaries nor is there any credible self-regulatory mechanism in place", the ministry had said.

The government had last year notified IT rules to make digital intermediaries more accountable and responsible for content hosted on their platforms.

First Published:Aug 2, 2022 5:09 PM IST