WhatsApp banned over 20 lakh accounts in India in a month, reveals first intermediary guidelines report

WhatsApp has published its first edition of the India Monthly Report under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and confirmed what actions it took to prevent harmful behaviour on the messaging platform.

WhatsApp on Thursday published its first intermediary guidelines report in compliance with the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The Facebook-owned messaging app revealed that it banned over 29 lakh accounts between May 15 - June 15, 2021. The company further shared some details around the ban and added that over 95 per cent of such account bans are because of unauthorized use of automated or bulk messaging which can be classified as Spam. WhatsApp adds that the global monthly average is about 8 million accounts banned or disabled every month.