WhatsApp Fights Back: AI To Combat Rising International Spam Call Menace

WhatsApp acknowledged the influx of reports concerning spam and missed calls from unfamiliar numbers, many bearing international area codes. The Meta-owned chat giant asserted that it is intensifying its efforts to detect these calls.

What Happened? In a statement released on Thursday, a spokesperson from WhatsApp clarified saying, “We have swiftly enhanced our Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) systems to significantly mitigate such occurrences, namely international spam calls. We anticipate our new enforcement measures will cut the current calling rate by a minimum of 50%, effectively managing this issue.”

The past few weeks have seen a stark rise in reports of spam calls originating from international numbers. Interestingly, some users have pointed out that the individuals using these numbers appear to be located within India.

The methodology employed by these spammers to acquire a multitude of international numbers and reach a vast number of users within a limited timeframe remains uncertain.

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The spokesperson further stated, “Within WhatsApp, we maintain various safety tools such as Block & Report. We also actively seek and remove bad actors from our platform. Despite our efforts, these bad actors continually devise new methods to trick users.”

Significantly, WhatsApp issued this statement in response to reports indicating that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) would soon notify the company about the issue.

Recently, the chat giant struck a deal with Truecaller India to combat the issue of spam calls. However, users are evidently pressing for more robust, in-house actions from WhatsApp to curb this problem effectively.

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