WhatsApp removed over 18 lakh accounts in January in India for violating rules
India Today
WhatsApp's latest compliance report has revealed that the messaging app has blocked over 18 lakh accounts in India for violating WhatsApp guidelines.
WhatsApp’s latest compliance report is out. The report reveals that WhatsApp had blocked over 18 lakh accounts in India for violating WhatsApp guidelines. Between January 1 and January 31, WhatsApp banned around 18,50,000 accounts in India. The company revealed that it had received 495 grievance reports in January and took action on 24 of those in the same month.
The Meta-owned messaging app said in a statement that most accounts that were banned in January were found violating the guidelines of WhatsApp. The messaging app has also taken action on the basis of the grievances reports it has received from other users. Notably, WhatsApp users can send emails to grievance_officer_wa@support.whatsapp.com regarding violations of WhatsApp’s Terms of Service, or questions about accounts on WhatsApp. The grievances can also be sent to the India Grievance Officer via post.
“Safety-related grievances pertain to issues that may be about abuse or harmful behavior on the platform. For such grievances, we respond to the user guiding them to report the complaint via in-app reporting. This allows WhatsApp to receive the most recent messages sent to the complainant by the reported user or group, as well as information on the complainant’s recent interactions with the reported user. As per our processes, this is not recorded as an action taken against the grievance report,” WhatsApp said in a statement.
WhatsApp further noted that it only responds to grievances filed by users only when it is not a duplicate of a previous ticket. The messaging app says an “account is ‘actioned’ when an account is banned or a previously banned account is restored, as a result of a complaint.”
WhatsApp issues multiple warnings before banning an account. If WhatsApp ever bans your account, you will get a message saying, “Your phone number is banned from using WhatsApp. Contact support for help.” If you feel your account is wrongly blocked, you could contact the messaging app and put in a request to unblock it. You could send an email to WhatsApp to properly investigate the reason behind banning your account. WhatsApp only bans an account if it is found violating the guidelines of the company.
