What’s happening? Meta’s messaging service WhatsApp banned 19,10,000 Indian accounts between May 1-31, 2022, the company said in its July compliance report. The report adds that the company received a total of 528 grievances in the same period, of which 303 were ban appeals.
What kind of complaints did WhatsApp receive? The grievances included 149 complaints related to account support, 29 regarding other support, 34 about product support and 13 more regarding safety, among others. Out of these, WhatsApp has actioned 24 accounts. ‘Accounts actioned’ denotes corrective measures taken based on the complaints raised.
In comparison, the messaging platform banned over 16 lakh accounts of Indian users in April, and 18.05 lakh such accounts in March.
Why does it matter? WhatsApp has become a medium for the spread of misinformation in India, according to several news reports and studies. A recent investigation also reported that there was a proliferation of inauthentic behaviour among its users. Data from compliance reports give an indication of WhatsApp’s content moderation efforts in India.
How does WhatsApp detect abuse? “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 said in the report.
“We respond to all grievances received except in cases where a grievance is deemed to be a duplicate of a previous ticket. An account is ‘actioned’ when an account is banned or a previously banned account is restored, as a result of a complaint,” it added.
What are compliance reports? All major social media platforms must publish monthly grievance reports per the IT Rules 2021. These “compliance reports” contain information on actions taken by the company in response to the grievances received from users in India via a mandated grievance redressal mechanism. Accounts are actioned against for violating the laws of India or WhatsApp’s terms of service.
How will a change in the IT Rules 2021 affect social media companies? Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) released a draft amendment to the IT Rules. As per the amendment, the ministry has proposed to bring down the 15-day timeline to 72 hours for addressing and resolving complaints about patently false content, content that infringes a copyright and content that “threatens India’s integrity”.
The government has also proposed to form an appellate grievance committee to allow users to appeal against takedown decisions by grievance officers of social media platforms.
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