Almost half of WhatsApp users receive spam voice and video calls, mostly from international numbers: survey

WhatsApp users in India recently reported spam voice and video calls from international numbers on social media. These calls offer easy tasks such as clicking likes on YouTube.

IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar reported that he sent notifications to WhatsApp about the nuisance calls and messages.

WhatsApp defended itself in a statement, saying, “We fully agree with the government’s goal of keeping users safe…” The company’s statement points to a “stay safe with WhatsApp” campaign to educate users about the built-in safety features. Platform for two-step verification, blocking, reporting, privacy management, and more.

LocalCircles recently conducted a survey on this issue and found that 46% of people in India said they received unsolicited voice and video calls. 83% obtained in the last 30 days.

A breakdown of the data shows that 21% of respondents saw no change in the last 30 days. 17% said their voice and video calls increased by up to 20%. 25% said she increased by 20-50%. Only 4% of respondents said she had increased by 50-100%. 8% of respondents show a 100-500% increase, and a staggering 4% of those surveyed reported a 500% or more increase in unsolicited voice and video calls. .

When asked what types of unknown numbers users are receiving calls from WhatsApp, 59% of respondents admitted that these calls were mostly from international numbers. According to the data, 37% of her respondents received voice or video calls mostly from international numbers and some from domestic numbers. 23% receive such fraudulent calls, mostly from domestic numbers and some international numbers. 22% receive calls only from international numbers and 18% receive calls only from national numbers.

From this research, we can conclude that the threat of WhatsApp calls from spam numbers has increased exponentially in recent weeks.

WhatsApp should not only apply AI/ML, but also make it easier for users to report such activity, and should take appropriate blocking action if multiple users report fraudulent numbers in a short period of time. I have.

The survey received nearly 23,000 responses from WhatsApp users in 323 districts of India. 63% of respondents were male and 37% were female. 45% of respondents were from Tier 1, 32% from Tier 2 and 23% from Tier 3, Tier 4 and rural areas.