New Delhi: According to its monthly compliance report, WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, banned a record-breaking number of over 45 lakh fake accounts in India in February, to comply with the new IT Rules 2021.
During the month of February, out of the 4,597,400 banned WhatsApp accounts, 1,298,000 were proactively banned by the company even before receiving any user reports.
In the month of February, WhatsApp, the widely used messaging platform with nearly 500 million users in India, received a record-breaking 2,804 complaint reports.
Out of these, only 504 were found to be valid and were consequently acted upon.
According to a spokesperson from the company, “This report on user safety provides information about the complaints received from users and the measures taken by WhatsApp to address them, as well as the preventive measures taken by WhatsApp to counter misuse on our platform.”
The spokesperson for the company stated that they will maintain transparency regarding their work and will provide information about their efforts in the upcoming reports.
Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) to address the concerns of Indian social media users about content and other issues.
This initiative is aimed at empowering millions of social media users in the country.
The Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) recently established by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is aimed at strengthening digital regulations in India to hold Big Tech companies accountable.
The committee will focus on reviewing appeals made by social media platform users against their content moderation decisions.
“The Ministry of Electronics and IT notified last month to establish three Grievance Appellate Committees (GACs) as required under the recently amended IT Rules 2021.
These amendments aim to protect the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’ and push towards an open, safe, trusted, and accountable internet,”