Thanks to India’s new IT rules, WhatsApp banned 1.7 million user accounts in November last year

• WhatsApp in its latest monthly user safety report highlights action taken during the month of November last year.
• It banned a total of 1,759,000 accounts during this period.
• WhatsApp also shared the various reports it received through grievances from users.

WhatsApp has published its latest monthly grievance report on the actions it took based on complaints and reports by users in India. This is the sixth monthly report submitted by WhatsApp following India’s new IT rules that came into effect from May 2021 onwards. The latest report is about action taken during the period between 1 November, 2021 and 30 November, 2021.

According to the report, WhatsApp banned a total of 1,759,000 accounts during this period. This count is less than the previous months of September and October last year during which WhatsApp banned over 2 million accounts. These accounts are banned through WhatsApp’s abuse detection process and also through the in-app reporting system.

WhatsApp also shared reports it received through grievances from users. WhatsApp takes into account the grievances received from users who can either email or send a post of their complaints. A total of 357 ban appeals were made and out of which WhatsApp took action on 36 accounts. WhatsApp also received 147 account support reports, 48 product support reports, and 27 safety reports but not one action was taken against these complaints.

WhatsApp denotes not taking action as “N/A” in its report and highlights that in some cases there could be duplicated tickets, reassignment of tickets, or advising users to take actions through in-app reporting. WhatsApp also received 21 ‘other support’ reports which it says are requests that are not consistently classifiable.

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