WhatsApp banned 26.85 lakh accounts in India in September, together with 8.72 lakh accounts which have been barred proactively earlier than being flagged by customers, the Meta-owned prompt messaging agency mentioned on Tuesday. The variety of accounts blocked in September have been 15 per cent greater than the 23.28 lakh accounts the messaging platform banned in August.

“Between 1 September, 2022, and 30 September, 2022, 2,685,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 872,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users. An Indian account is identified via a +91 phone number,” Whatsapp mentioned in its User Safety Report for the month of September.

The harder IT guidelines, which got here into impact final 12 months, mandate massive digital platforms (with over 50 lakh customers) to publish compliance stories each month, mentioning the main points of complaints obtained and motion taken.

Big social media companies have drawn flak previously over hate speech, misinformation and faux information circulating on their platforms. Concerns have been flagged by some quarters again and again over digital platforms performing arbitrarily in knocking down content material, and ‘de-platforming’ customers.

The authorities final week introduced guidelines for establishing a grievance attraction mechanism in opposition to arbitrary content material moderation, inaction, or takedown choices of huge tech corporations.

According to the WhatsApp report, the platform obtained 666 grievances in September however took motion solely in opposition to 23.

“In addition to responding to and actioning on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behavior on the platform. 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,” the corporate mentioned.