WhatsApp, Facebook’s social media platform for messaging has announced that it has suspended or banned almost two billion users accounts between the period of May 15 and June 15. The company disclosed the information in its maiden monthly compliance report, said a PTI report. The company also informed that it has received over 345 grievance reports in this period.

India’s new IT rules have made it mandatory for all social media platforms, with over five million users, to submit compliance reports every month. 

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“Our top focus is
preventing accounts from sending harmful or unwanted messages at scale. We
maintain advanced capabilities to identify these accounts sending a high or
abnormal rate of messages and banned two million accounts in India alone from
May 15-June 15 attempting this kind of abuse,” WhatsApp said on Thursday.

While explaining the reason behind these bans, Whatsapp said that more
than 95% of such bans are due to the unauthorised use of automated or
bulk messaging (spam).

The report also that the subsequent editions of the report is expected to be published in the next 30-45 days.

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The Facebook-owned company
explained that the number of accounts banned have augmented significantly since
2019 as the sophistication of systems has increased.

“We are
catching more accounts even as we believe there are more attempts to send bulk
or automated messages,” WhatsApp said.

At a global level, WhatsApp has banned over eight million accounts on an average per month.

The company also clarified that the user reports
received by the platform via the grievance channel/s are evaluated and
responded to.

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The report comes at the backdrop of  India’s new IT rules that make it mandatory for significant social media intermediaries (SSMIs) to maintain and publish a monthly report on the action taken on user complaints that they have received. 

The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 were framed and notified on February 25 this year. The rules came into effect in the nation on May 26, 2021. 

The Centre in its report to United Nations said that the rules will help in addressing concerns related to issues like inducement for recruitment of terrorists, circulation of obscene content, spread of disharmony, financial frauds, incitement of violence, public order.