Facebook and WhatsApp have published their monthly compliance report as mandated by the new IT rules.
As per Facebook, it received 646 reports in India through its grievance mechanism channel between May 15, 2021 and June 15, 2021 under categories like bullying, account hacking, nudity and fake profiles, and it provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 363 of these cases. Further, it said that 198 complaints related to accounts being hacked, while reports were also received for categories such as ‘fake profile that’s pretending to be me’ (73), ‘bullying or harassment’ (45), ‘content showing me in nudity/partial nudity or in a sexual act’ (36), and ‘inappropriate or abusive content’ (18). Facebook also received reports under ‘lost access to a page or group I used to manage’ (47), ‘request access to personal data’ (22), ‘report issue with how Facebook is processing my data’ (14), ‘content I appear in that I do not want displayed’ (19) and other issues (174). To this end, Facbook responded to 100 per cent of these 646 reports and of these incoming reports, provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 363 cases. Additionally, Instagram, which is part of the Facebook, received 36 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism during the same time period.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp said that it has banned two million accounts from Indian users between May 15, 2021 and June 15, 2021 and over 95 per cent of such bans are due to the unauthorised use of automated or bulk messaging. These accounts were identified with the India country code identifier. WhatsApp took action on 63 accounts.
