The company also says that it received reports against 666 accounts, out of which 496 were ban appeals. The company banned 23 of those accounts.
“In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we’ve published our report for the month of September 2022. 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. As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 2.6 million accounts in the month of September,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.
WhatsApp Monthly India Reports
WhatsApp says that the reports are published in accordance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules, 2021).
WhatsApp explains that the abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle: at registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback. The company receives the feedback in the form of user reports and blocks.
“Apart from responding to and actioning on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behaviour on the platform. 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.
How to report a WhatsApp account
- Open the chat with the user you want to report.
- Tap More options > More > Report.
- Check the box if you would like to also block the user and delete messages in the chat.
- Tap Report.
WhatsApp says that it receives the last five messages sent to you by the reported user or group, and they won’t be notified. “WhatsApp also receives the reported group or user ID, information on when the message was sent, and the type of message sent (image, video, text, etc.),” as per a WhatsApp FAQ page. Users can also report an account by long pressing a single message and tapping on the overflow menu.
How to block a WhatsApp account
WhatsApp allows users to block and report a contact in case of abuse. To block a contact/ account, you have to:
- Open WhatsApp, tap More options > Settings.
- Tap Privacy > Blocked contacts.
- Tap Add and search/ select the contact you want to block.
- You can also block an account by opening a chat with an account, tap More options > More > Block > Block or Report And Block, which will report and block the number.
- To block an unidentified phone number, open the WhatsApp chat with the unknown phone number.
- Tap Block or Report And Block, which will report and block the number.
These blocked contacts will no longer be able to call or send messages to you.
