The instant messaging platform WhatsApp banned lakhs of accounts in the month of November. These WhatsApp accounts have been banned under Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The latest report from the messaging platform shows that WhatsApp banned over 37 lakh accounts between November 1 and November 30, which is a couple of lakhs more than the accounts banned in October. The report clearly stated that among the 37+ lakh accounts, 990,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users.

Commenting on banning lakhs of accounts in India, 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 company said that it 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 messaging platform said.

WhatsApp’s abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle: at registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback, which is received in the form of user reports and blocks.