Massive Ban: 500,000 X Accounts Suspended in India for Policy Breaches

Elon Musk-led X Corp banned a record 5,06,173 accounts in India between January 26 and February 25, mostly for promoting child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity. The platform, which is undergoing a churn under Musk, also took down 1,982 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform in the country. In total, X banned 5,08,155 accounts in the country during the reporting period. X, in its monthly report on compliance with the new IT rules, 2021, said it received 14,421 complaints from users in India during the same period through its grievance redressal mechanism.

In addition, X processed 41 complaints appealing account suspension. “We have overturned 1 of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. The remaining reported account remains suspended,” the company said.

"We received 71 requests related to general queries about accounts during this reporting period," it added. The majority of complaints from India were about contraband theft (7,510), followed by promoting suicide or self-harm (3,785), hateful conduct (1,395) and abuse/harassment (746). Between December 26 and January 25, X banned 2,31,215 accounts in India. The micro-blogging platform also deleted 1,945 accounts for promoting terrorism during this period.