WhatsApp Banned 2 Million Indian Accounts – Free PDF Download

What has happened?

• WhatsApp has banned 2 million accounts from Indian users between May 15 and June 15,
• With the majority of them being banned due to unauthorised use of automated or bulk messaging and spamming users,
• The messaging platform said in its first report as mandated by the new IT rules.
• These accounts were identified with the India country code identifier.
• The messaging platform bans or disables over 8 million accounts on an average every month globally.

What WhatsApp said in its report?

• “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,
• WhatsApp said in the report, in accordance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
• “The abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle:
• At registration; during messaging; and in response to negative feedback, which we receive in the form of user reports and blocks.
• A team of analysts augments these systems to evaluate edge cases and help improve our effectiveness over time,” WhatsApp said.
• These accounts were tracked through WhatsApp’s tools and resources to prevent harmful behaviour on the platform, the company said in the report.
• The company received 345 grievances between May 15 and June 15, of which the majority 204 of them were appeals against ban. It took action on 63 accounts.
• India is the largest market in terms of users for WhatsApp with over 530 million users using the app on their smartphones in the country.

WhatsApp opposed these rules earlier

• In May, the Facebook-owned platform filed a case in the Delhi High Court against the government seeking to block the new IT rules.
• WhatsApp had opposed the mandate to trace the origin of particular messages sent on the service saying the service is encrypted.

Then how whatsapp is tracing the users?

• The company is consistently investing in technology, people and processes to keep users safe and secure on its end to end encrypted platform.
• “In addition to the behavioural signals from accounts, we rely on available unencrypted information including user reports, profile photos, and group photos and descriptions,
• Besides deploying advanced AI tools and resources to detect and prevent abuse on our platform.”
• It also said it employs a team of engineers, data scientists, analysts, researchers, and experts in law enforcement, online safety, and technology developments to oversee our user-safety efforts.

• As per the report, Facebook received 646 reports through the various grievance mechanisms and responded to all the complaints.
• It received 73 complaints from users about fake profiles that were impersonating them, while it received 198 complaints of accounts being hacked.
• There were also 22 requests to access personal data by users, while 18 complaints were regarding inappropriate or abusive content.
• Similarly, for Instagram, between the same May 15 to June 15, 2021 period, users filed 25 reports complaining of content showing them full or partial nudity, while there were seven reports of accounts being hacked.

Q) In the new IT rules, which among the following officer is not mandatory to be appointed?

1. Grievance officer
2. Chief compliance officer
3. Reporting officer
4. Nodal officer

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