WhatsApp Bans Over 65 Lakh Accounts in India – Reason Revealed
WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, has revealed that it took action against over 6.5 million accounts in India during May. This move was made in accordance with the new IT Rules 2021. The accounts were banned due to either breaching Indian laws or violating WhatsApp’s terms of service.
Between May 1 and May 31, 6,508,000 WhatsApp accounts were blocked and 2,420,700 of these accounts were proactively blocked before users reported it,” WhatsApp said in its monthly compliance report.
The popular instant messaging platform, which has nearly 500 million users in the country, received a record 3,912 complaints in the country in May, and there were 297 “actions”.
“Accounts Actioned” means reports where WhatsApp took corrective action based on the report, and taking action means either banning the account or reinstating a previously banned account as a result.
“This user safety report includes information on user complaints received and the corresponding actions taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp’s own preventive measures to combat abuse on our platform,” the instant messaging app said.
The instant messaging app banned 74,000,000 Indian accounts during April as part of preventive measures to combat abuse on its platform.
At the same time, WhatsApp now has a faster and safer way to transfer chats from an old phone to a new one using a QR code locally without cloud service. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Instagram that WhatsApp users can now transfer their conversations between devices. He said this would allow users to transfer their chats to the new phone “more privately without your chat ever leaving your device”.
A video shared on the Meta channel shows how a user can easily transfer chats from one Android device to another by scanning a QR code. This eliminates the need for third-party applications and transfers data locally – instead of using the cloud. For this to work, both devices must be connected to the same local Wi-Fi network.
