WhatsApp banned record 71L bad accounts in India in Nov 2023

Meta-owned WhatsApp banned a record over 71 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of November 2023, in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021, the company said on Monday. Between November 1-30, the company banned 71,96,000 accounts. About 19,54,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users, WhatsApp said in its monthly compliance report. The most popular messaging platform, which has over 500 million users in the country, received another record 8,841 complaint reports in November in the country, and the records “actioned” were six. “Accounts Actioned” denotes reports where WhatsApp took remedial action based on the report and taking action denotes either banning an account or a previously banned account being restored as a result. “This user-safety report contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp’s own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform,” according to the company. In a bid to empower millions of Indian social media users, the Centre recently launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) which looks into their concerns regarding content and other issues.