Twitter bans over 25 lakh accounts in India last month; Know the reason!

The microblogging platform banned lakhs of accounts in India for violating various guidelines between March and April. Here’s what happened.

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Twitter has banned accounts in India for violating guidelines. (Bloomberg)

Twitter, in its monthly report, revealed that it has blocked as many as 25,51,623 accounts in India for violating guidelines related to child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity between March 25 and April 26. Since Elon Musk's mercurial takeover of Twitter, the microblogging platform has gone through a plethora of changes related to content, moderation, and verification. Back in February, Twitter announced that changes were being made to the guidelines that led accounts to being banned, stating that,” anyone can appeal an account suspension and be evaluated under our new criteria for reinstatement.”

Accounts banned

Apart from banning a record 25 lakh accounts for breaching rules around child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity, Twitter has also banned 2,249 accounts for promoting terrorism on the platform. That means a total of 25,53,881 have been shut down for violating various guidelines.

"We overturned three of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. The remaining reported accounts remain suspended,” the company said.

According to Twitter's monthly report, it had received 158 complaints in India from users who registered their grievances through Twitter Support during the March-April period. Under the new IT Rules 2021, any social media platform that has over 5 million users is required to publish a monthly compliance report.

What were the complaints about?

Twitter has revealed the breakdown of complaints received. 83 complaints that the microblogging platform received were about abuse or harassment, while 41 complaints were regarding sensitive adult content. It was followed by 19 complaints of hateful conduct and 12 complaints of defamation.

WhatsApp ban

Like Twitter, WhatsApp has also published its monthly compliance report, which reveals that over 74 lakh accounts in India were banned between April 1 and April 30, in response to grievances from users, accounts actioned for violating laws or terms of service, and orders received from the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC), according to ANI.