WhatsApp ban slapped on over 1.6 mn Indian accounts in April, 2022

To keep its users safe, WhatsApp has revealed that it has banned as many as 1.66 mn Indian accounts in April, 2022. This extreme action is taken to prevent any harmful activity on the app, according to disclosure report published today. WhatsApp says that it has "...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".

"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," WhatsApp spokesperson indicated.

"Our goal is to identify and stop abusive accounts as quickly as possible, which is why identifying these accounts manually is not realistic. Instead, we have advanced machine learning systems that take action to ban accounts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," the spokesperson further added. WhatsApp also revealed that its systems evaluate the account and take appropriate action after negative feedback is reported.

The company said it bans an account in several cases, including when an account accumulates negative feedback, such as when other users submit reports or block the account.

"The abuse detection operates at three stages of an account’s lifestyle: at registration, during messaging, and in response to negative feedback, which we receive in the form of user reports and blocks. A team of analysts augments these systems to evaluate edge cases and help improve our effectiveness over time," WhatsApp indicated.