WHATSAPP users say Meta is banning their accounts over “silly” group chat names.
The group chat names, while claimed to be innocent, appear to violate WhatsApp’s terms of service.
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But many banned users are struggling to appeal their case with WhatsApp’s automated user service system.
“A friend of mine made a group chat, with a silly name – “strippers and cocaine” because who doesn’t want an absurd name for a silly little group chat,” one user wrote on Reddit.
“The group chat got banned even though we haven’t even used it yet and my friend who made the group chat had his whole account banned.
“However this seems to be a prevalent problem as a lot of the posts on this subreddit are people getting banned for similar things.”
On a separate Reddit thread, another WhatsApp user alleged their account was banned for the same reason.
“I’ve got a pretty bizarre ban today,” they wrote. “I think I know the reason why.”
“You see, I have made a group chat for a college subject and called it ISIS because it is an abbreviation of that subjects name (I really did not think much of it),” they added.
“And WhatsApp has probably flagged it for breaking the terms of use.”
WhatsApp’s terms of service says users must not “instigate or encourage conduct that would be illegal… such as promoting violent crime” or “coordinating harm”.
Yet users say that having a “silly” group chat name should not be grounds for getting banned.
While one user claimed that Meta’s AI was used to detect the rule-breaking group chat name, citing a notification they received – WhatsApp says this is not the case.
“Only messages that mention @Meta AI, or that people choose to share with Meta AI, can be read by Meta,” WhatsApp writes in a help page on its website.
“Meta can’t read any other messages in your personal chats.”
What is Meta AI?
You may have spotted Meta AI on your social media feed – here’s how it works:
Meta AI is a conversational artificial intelligence tool, also known as a chatbot.
It responds to a user’s questions in a similar fashion to competitors like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.
Meta AI is what’s known as generative AI, so-called due to its ability to generate content. It can produced text or images in response to a user’s request.
The tool is trained on data that’s available online. It can mimic patterns commonly found in human language as it provides responses.
Meta AI appears on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, where it launches a chat when a question is sent.
All WhatsApp conversations are end-to-end encrypted – meaning that no one can read them besides the sender and the recipient, not Meta, or even the government.
If a user thinks their account has been wrongly banned, they can appeal.
“We ban accounts if we believe the account activity violates our Terms of Service, for example if it involves spam, scams or if it puts WhatsApp users’ safety at risk,” WhatsApp writes in another frequently asked questions page.
“We recommend carefully reviewing the “Acceptable Use of Our Services” section of our Terms of Service to learn more about the appropriate uses of WhatsApp and the activities that violate our Terms of Service.“
The Sun has contacted Meta for comment.
WhatsApp – a quick history
Here’s what you need to know…
- WhatsApp was created in 2009 by computer programmers Brian Acton and Jan Koum – former employees of Yahoo
- It’s one of the most popular messaging services in the world
- Koum came up with the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up”
- After a number of tweaks the app was released with a messaging component in June 2009, with 250,000 active users
- It was originally free but switched to a paid service to avoid growing too fast. Then in 2016, it became free again for all users
- Facebook bought WhatsApp Inc in February 2014 for $19.3 billion / £14.64 billion
- The app is particularly popular because all messages are encrypted during transit, shutting out snoopers
- As of 2024, WhatsApp has over 2.78 billion monthly users globally
