(This article is authored by Alar) 

In what has become yet another major digital embargo against what has been alleged to be the growing abuse, WhatsApp has banned over 19 lakh Indian accounts in the month of May, following a similar curb that was imposed on 16.6 lakh accounts in April. The Meta-owned company has said that the ban of 19 lakh accounts was done under the new IT rules 2021. 

The global messaging platform has cited that this ban was imposed to deter the abuses. On Friday, a WhatsApp spokesperson said, "As captured in the latest monthly report, WhatsApp banned over 1.9 million accounts in the month of May. 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", the official added. The new IT Rules (Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media  Ethics Code) ordered all big social media and digital platforms, which have 5 million more users, should have to submit a monthly report to the department in which the platforms are directed to mention the details of complaints received and action taken. 

This monthly report from WhatsApp contains the details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as Whatsapp's own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform. The spokesperson further said, "Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state-of-the-art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform.