Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With governments tightening screws to contain misuse of social media platforms, the European Union has warned Twitter to protect users from hate speech while WhatsApp said it banned over 23 lakh accounts in India in October alone.
WhatsApp appears to be the most popular social media platform globally, with around 200 crore users, including nearly 49 crores in India alone, making it the largest market for the messaging platform. But it is also infested with misusers and found responsible for bringing flash mobs on roads, fanning hatred, and inciting violence.
The media reported on Thursday that the EU told Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk to strengthen measures for user protection so that it complies with the new Digital Services Act.
A top European Union official warned Musk on Wednesday that Twitter must beef up measures to protect users from hate speech, misinformation, and other harmful content to avoid violating new rules that threaten technology giants with big fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc.
With India also taking similar tough measures, WhatsApp, on Wednesday, said it banned 23.24 lakh accounts in the country in October, including 8.11 lakh accounts barred proactively before being flagged by users. In September also, WhatsApp had blocked 26.85 lakh accounts.
“Between 1 Oct 2022 and 31 Oct 2022, 2,324,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 811,000 of these accounts were proactively banned before any reports from users. An Indian account is identified via a +91 phone number,” WhatsApp said in the India Monthly Report under the Information Technology Rules 2021 for October.
The tougher IT rules, which came into effect last year, mandate large digital platforms (with over 50 lakh users) to publish compliance reports every month, with details of complaints received and action taken, the media reported.
Major social media companies have drawn flak over the propagation of hate speech, misinformation, and fake news circulating on their platforms. Concerns have been flagged by some quarters repeatedly over digital platforms acting arbitrarily in pulling down content, and ‘de-platforming’ users.
The Government of India last week announced rules for setting up a grievance appeal mechanism against arbitrary content moderation, inaction, or takedown decisions of big technology firms.
According to the latest WhatsApp report, the platform received 701 grievances in September but took action only against 34. It received an appeal to ban 550 accounts but took action only on 34 accounts.
“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 report said.
Besides responding to and actioning on user complaints through the grievance channel, WhatsApp also deploys tools and resources to prevent harmful behavior on the platform, the report said.
“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,” the company said.