Messaging service provider WhatsApp blocked over 2 million user accounts in India within a period of one month, according to a compliance report released by the company. WhatsApp revealed on Thursday that it had taken blocking action against these accounts between 15 May and 15 June using automated technology. The report is the first-of-its-kind released by WhatsApp in the country.
Overall, WhatsApp received 345 complaints in the one month period from 15 May to 15 June of which the company acted on 63. Providing a breakdown, WhatsApp said in its report that the maximum cases, 204, were those of appeals of users whose accounts had been blocked. The company took action on 63 appeals. In 70 cases, account problems were reported. In addition, the company received 43 cases related to support for products provided by it which revealed eight safety-related issues. The remaining 20 cases were those of ‘other support’.
The new Information Technology Rules, 2021, formulated by the Modi government require social media companies to submit a monthly compliance report. Other American technology companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have already released their compliance reports.
However, WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court, opposing the requirement of tracing the “first originator of information” which is also mandated under the new IT rules for social media intermediaries. The Facebook-owned messaging service has said that the rules would force the company to break down its end-to-end encryption system which guards the user’s privacy.
Having over 530 million users in India, WhatsApp is the most popular and widely used messaging app in the country.
