WhatsApp Banned 1.85 Million Accounts In March 2022

WhatsApp has banned about 1.85 million accounts in March 2022 in response to grievances received from users in India. The messaging platform recently released its monthly User Safety report for the country, which gives details of taken action against users as response to complaints.

The banned accounts tally for March was higher than that of the previous month. In February, about 1.4 million accounts were banned on the platform. These accounts are banned for not adhering to WhatsApp’s code of conduct while using the messaging platform. Unlawful and/or violence-provoking activities on the platform are some reasons why accounts can get banned.

The report mentions that the bans are a result of people registering grievances in accordance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

How WhatsApp tackles abuse

“The abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle: at registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback, received in the form of user reports and blocks. A team of analysts augments these systems to evaluate edge cases and help improve effectiveness over time. We have detailed our on-platform capabilities to identify and ban accounts in this white paper,” WhatsApp said in its report.

The report details the information for March 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022, through which a total of 597 grievances were sent by users out of which 112 were related to WhatsApp account support, 407 were ban appeals and 37 reports were that of product support. Of the remainder, 13 reports were related to safety and the other 28 were related to other issues.

The report also reveals that only 74 requests were auctioned, all of them from the ban appeal category.

How to send a WhatsApp grievance

If you want to send WhatsApp for banning or restoring an account, you can do so by mailing to ‘grievance_officer_wa@support.whatsapp.com’. You may also send a mail via post to your nearest grievance officer. Details for the same can be found on WhatsApp’s online FAQ page.