WhatsApp deletes 2 million accounts: users did not follow the rules

WhatsApp says goodbye to more and more users. And not involuntarily, but deliberately. The messenger service willingly deletes several million accounts because users break the rules.

WhatsApp on the smartphone

WhatsApp takes hold worldwide and deletes accounts that do not adhere to the rules of the messenger. The reason for this is not the partly new usage guidelines that made waves in the spring. Rather, it is about users who send an above-average number of messages and thus violate the rules of the app.

MILLIONS OF WHATSAPP ACCOUNTS DELETED – THAT’S BEHIND IT

The messenger deals with spam accounts that show a noticeably high level of activity or number of messages. In 2018 WhatsApp introduced a limit for forwarded messages . If the number is exceeded, WhatsApp intervenes. An algorithm compares the behavior of the corresponding accounts and, depending on the volume of messages, declares them as spam accounts or not.

In general, however, one can assume that when the limit of forwarded messages is reached, it is a question of spam accounts that send messages with links to external websites or the like. Also up to date: between mid-May and mid-June, over two million accounts were blocked, reports the BBC . It is said that all blocked accounts are from India. With 400 million accounts, this is the largest market for the messenger app.

The current bans are not an isolated case: As the BBC continues to report, Messenger actively takes action against eight million spam and fake accounts every month. The aim is to prevent chain letters, the spread of fake news and the like.

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USERS CAN CONTINUE AS BEFORE

Even if you’re someone who shares tons of messages a day with friends and family, you can still use WhatsApp with confidence. It is unlikely that others would forward your

messages so frequently that WhatsApp would mark them as spam. However, you can recognize messages that are often sent yourself: WhatsApp indicates them with a double arrow and the label “Frequently forwarded”. This means that the message was sent to more than five chats.

Regardless of the distribution of chain letters and the like, it can still happen that WhatsApp blocks your account . If this happens by mistake, you can contact Messenger personally and have a check carried out. In the future, this should become even easier with an in-app option.