WhatsApp bans nearly 1.5 mn accounts in India in February; know how to restore account

WhatsApp ban: Like every month, WhatsApp has released its monthly user safety report. The report highlights that the instant messaging platform has banned 1,426,000 India-based accounts in the month of February. This is the ninth user safety report released by WhatsApp. In this month, it captured information between the period of February 1-28, 2022. The banned accounts were identified as Indian accounts based on the country code +91 at the beginning of the number. The report is published under Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

The abovementioned rule encompasses action taken by WhatsApp as a response to grievances received by the users of India via the grievance mechanism of WhatsApp. Additionally, accounts that violated the laws of India or the WhatsApp terms of services were also banned.

WhatsApp bans nearly 1.5 million Indian accounts in February

This is not the first time WhatsApp has banned a large number of accounts. Earlier, the Meta-owned company banned around 2 million accounts in the month of January 2022. Prior to that, the messaging platform has also banned a high number of users in the months of June and November 2021, where it banned 3 million accounts and 1.7 million accounts respectively. With rising incidents of fake news in social media, inciting violence through forwarded messages as well as spreading hateful messages towards a group or community, WhatsApp has increased its scrutiny on the platform and has been vigilantly punishing any malicious behavior.

How to contact WhatsApp if you were unjustly banned

Even as WhatsApp has increased its scrutiny on bans, sometimes a mistake can be made and WhatsApp may ban an innocent user. For instances like these, the instant messaging app has provided a process for the banned individual to put up a grievance. Users can send an email to grievance_officer_wa@support.whatsapp.com with their appeal in case they feel they were unjustly banned from the platform. The email needs to have an electronic signature and the contact number of the user in international format. If the user turns out to be innocent, the company claims that the account will be restored.