Twitter bans U.S. Congresswoman, Whatsapp bans 1.75m users in India

Twitter on Sunday permanently suspended an account of the U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, for "repeated violations" of the company's COVID-19 misinformation policies, reported Xinhua.

"We permanently suspended the account (@mtgreenee) for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy. We've been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.

Under Twitter's COVID-19 misinformation policy, users are given up to five strikes for spreading potentially harmful and misleading information before their accounts are permanently suspended.

The permanent Twitter suspension came months after the company temporarily suspended Greene, the Republican Representative from Georgia state, in August for tweeting vaccine misinformation, according to a report by San Francisco Chronicle.

Her official congressional account, @RepMTG, was still active Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, U.S.-based messenger platform Whatsapp banned over 1.75 million Indian accounts in November last year for allegedly abusing its service, the company said in its sixth user safety monthly report on Sunday, reported Xinhua.

These Indian accounts were taken out on complaints received from other users via the company's abuse detection mechanism that monitored user activities on the platform.

The Whatsapp monthly report was published in accordance with India's Information Technology Rules 2021, which became effective in May that required large digital platforms of over 5 million users to publish compliance report every month on complaints received and action taken.

Last November, the messenger service provider received 602 reports about user violation of its terms of service.

A Whatsapp spokesperson said the company has invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state-of-the-art technology to keep its users safe on the platform.

In October last year, Whatsapp received 500 grievance reports after 2 million Indian accounts were banned.