HIGHLIGHTS
- WhatsApp received complaints about 495 Indian accounts.
- WhatsApp employs technologies and resources to detect potentially dangerous behaviour.
- WhatsApp recognises Indian accounts by using the ISD code (+91) prefix.
According to a monthly report issued on Tuesday, mobile messaging network WhatsApp banned 18.58 lakh Indian accounts in January based on complaints received from users through its grievances division and the company's internal methodology to prevent and discover law breakers.
WhatsApp received complaints against 495 Indian accounts, which led to an appeal to remove 285 accounts, 24 of which were banned.
The bulk of the 18.58 lakh accounts were banned due to hazardous behaviour recognised by the company's tools and resources in its app.
"The data shared (banning of 18.58 lakh accounts)...highlights the number of Indian accounts banned by WhatsApp between 1 January, 2022 - 31 January, 2022 using the aforementioned abuse detection approach, which also includes action taken in response to negative feedback received from users via our 'Report' feature," according to WhatsApp's India Monthly Report under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules (or IT Rules), 2022.
The ISD code +91 prefixed before the 10-digit mobile number is used by the firm to identify Indian accounts.
