WhatsApp says it banned over 19 lakh bad accounts in India during May in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021.

New Delhi: Meta-owned WhatsApp on Friday said that it banned over 19 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of May in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021.

The platform had banned over 16.6 lakh bad accounts in India in April.

The company also received 528 grievance reports in May within the country, and the accounts “actioned” were 24.

In April, WhatsApp received 844 grievance reports within the country, and the accounts “actioned” were 123.

“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,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a



statement.

“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,” the spokesperson added.

Published in accordance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the report contains information on actions taken by WhatsApp in response to grievances received from users in India via the grievance mechanisms and accounts actioned in India through its prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of the land or its terms of service.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.