WhatsApp bans 2.3 million Indian accounts banned in August: Report

New Delhi, Oct 02: WhatsApp banned over 2.3 Indian accounts in August, of which over one million accounts were proactively taken down before any report from users, the messaging platform said on Saturday.

This is lower than level seen in the previous month. Over 2.3 million Indian accounts were banned by WhatsApp in July. "Between 1 August, 2022 and 31 August, 2022, 2,328,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 1,008,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users," WhatsApp said in monthly report.

Over 2.2 million Indian accounts were banned by WhatsApp in June on the basis of complaints received via its grievance redressal channel and through its own mechanism to detect violations. Earlier, 1.9 million such accounts were banned by WhatsApp in May, 1.6 million accounts in April, and 1.8 million in March.

The tougher IT rules, which came into effect last year, mandate large digital platforms (with over 5 million users) to publish compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken.

Big social media firms have drawn flak in the past over hate speech, misinformation, and fake news circulating on their platforms.

Concerns have been flagged by some quarters time and again over digital platforms acting arbitrarily in pulling down content, and 'de-platforming' users.

The government is in the midst of formulating new social media norms that propose to give users a grievance appeal mechanism against arbitrary content moderation, inaction, or takedown decisions of big tech companies.