Has WhatsApp just banned your account? 26.85 lakh users affected

WhatsApp, one of the most popular online messaging platform, has banned 26.85 lakhs accounts in India in the month of September 2022. As many as 666 grievance reports were received, and 23 accounts were "actioned" during the month of September. Also, of the total reports received, 496 pertained to 'ban appeal' while others were in the categories of account support, product support and safety, among others.`

The information was provided by WhatsApp in its India Monthly Report under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. In the report, the online messaging platform said, "Between 1 Sep, 2022 and 30 Sep, 2022, 2,685,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 872,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users."

It can be known that WhatsApp banned over 23.28 lakh Indian accounts in the month of August 2022. This means that the number of accounts banned in September is more. Also, the accounts have been banned using the abuse detection approach, which also includes action taken in relation to negative feedback received from users via the app's 'Report' feature.

"In addition to responding to and actioning on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also 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 company explained.

However, if you think that your WhatsApp account has been banned or suspended without you violating the app's terms then you can appeal to revoke the ban. Here are the steps you can follow for the same: