The October total of 26.85 lakh blocked accounts was down by nearly 13% from the September total.
WhatsApp, a popular programme for sending instant messages, said on Wednesday that it has terminated 23.24 lakh user accounts in India during the month of October. 8.11 lakh of those accounts were voluntarily removed before being brought to the attention of their owners by other users.
The number of accounts that were barred by the messaging platform in October was approximately 13 percent fewer as compared to the 26.85 lakh accounts that were banned by the platform in September.
"Between the first of October 2022 and the thirty-first of the same month, a total of 2,324,000 WhatsApp accounts were deleted. A grand total of 811,000 of these user accounts were deleted without first waiting for any other users to file any concerns. According to the information that was provided in the India Monthly Report that was submitted for the month of October in accordance with the Information Technology Rules 2021, it is possible for a phone number that starts with "+91" to be used to identify an Indian account.
The more stringent regulations on information technology that went into force a year ago mandated that large digital platforms, defined as those with more than 50 lakh users, post compliance reports on a monthly basis. These reports are required to provide information of the complaints that were received as well as the measures that were done in response to them.
Due to the frequency of hate speech, misinformation, and fake news on their platforms, large social media firms have been the focus of criticism in the past. Certain individuals and organisations have, on several times, voiced their concerns over the potential for digital platforms to act in an arbitrary manner with regard to the removal of content and the "de-platforming" of individuals.
A week ago, the government made public the requirements for the development of a grievance appeal mechanism that would be directed against the arbitrary content moderation, inactivity, or removal decisions made by huge technology businesses.
According to the most current information made available by WhatsApp, the platform was made aware of 701 complaints during the month of September; however, only 34 of those concerns were successfully handled.
It was requested that the platform terminate access to 550 user accounts, however it only did so in connection to 34 of those accounts.
"We respond to all complaints that are brought to our notice," the company's website states, "with the exception of circumstances in which a complaint is deemed as being a repetition of a previous ticket." According to the study, an account is regarded to have been "actioned" as a direct result of a complaint when either the account in question or an account that has previously been blocked is let back into the system.
According to the information provided in the article, WhatsApp makes use of a variety of methods and resources in addition to responding to and acting upon user complaints that are sent in via the grievance channel. This is done in the interest of preventing potentially damaging behaviour on the network.
The company has issued a statement that says, "We are particularly focused on prevention as we consider that it is much preferable to prevent inappropriate behaviour from happening in the first place than to discover it after it has already occurred."
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