WhatsApp says it banned over 26 lakh accounts in India in month of September

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In response to the government's wish to make the internet safe and trusted, a spokesperson of WhatsApp on Tuesday said, "We (the company) have published our report for the month of September 2022. This user-safety report contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp's own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform."

A WhatsApp spokesperson said, "WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in artificial intelligence and other state-of-the-art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform."

The spokesperson also said, "As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 2.6 million accounts in the month of September." For the record, the government on October 28 notified amended Information Technology rules under which appellate panels will be set up for addressing grievances of users against social media platforms.

According to the new rules, government-appointed appellate committees will be set up in three months to resolve social media users' grievances.

Also Read: ‘New IT rules give the government disproportionate control over the internet'

"The Grievance Appellate Committee shall adopt an online dispute resolution mechanism wherein the entire appeal process, from filing of appeal to the decision thereof, shall be conducted through digital mode," it added.

Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar told ANI on Saturday, "The main objective of what we are doing on the internet is to make sure the internet is open, it is safe, accountable, and trusted for our 120 crore digital citizens."

"We have made sure based on the learnings between May 2021 when the last rules were notified and consultations that we held...We have learned a lot of the gaps that existed in the previous rules and these new rules address those gaps," he added.

WhatsApp Messenger, or simply WhatsApp, is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform centralised instant messaging and voice-over-internet protocol service owned by American company Meta Platforms.

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