WhatsApp bans over 47 lakh Indian accounts in March, increase from February

Over 4.7 million WhatsApp accounts were banned in March, with 1.7 million of those accounts being proactively removed prior to any notifications from users, according to the instant messaging platform’s monthly report.

It blocked over 4.6 million Indian accounts in February. A +91 phone number identifies an Indian account.

“Between 1 Mar, 2023 and 31 Mar 2023, 4,715,906 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 1,659,385 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users,” the report titled India Monthly Report under the Information Technology said on Monday.

In addition to responding to and taking action on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behaviour on the 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,” it said.

The abuse detection system works at three stages: during registration, during messaging, and in response to negative input in the form of user reports and blocks.