The locals who disappeared from the platform have long been active participants in Whatsapp groups sharing news and updates. No one was quite sure of what was happening.
It's
been exactly four months since internet services were snapped in
Kashmir. Even as Kashmiris
continue to endure the shutdown, on Wednesday, they began vanishing
in large numbers from the social media platform WhatsApp, Buzzfeed
reported.
The
locals who disappeared from the platform have long been active
participants in Whatsapp groups sharing news and updates. No one was
quite sure of what was happening.
“I
thought that internet services had been restored in Kashmir and maybe
these people were just removing themselves from WhatsApp
groups on their own,” Mudasir Firdosi, a London-based Kashmiri
doctor who is in half a dozen WhatsApp groups told Buzzfeed.
A
Facebook spokesperson told Buzzfeed that the disappearances were the
result of WhatsApp's policy on inactive accounts. "To maintain
security and limit data retention, WhatsApp accounts generally expire
after 120 days of inactivity," he said. "When that happens,
those accounts automatically exit their WhatsApp groups. People will
need to be re-added to groups upon regaining access to the Internet
and joining WhatsApp again."
Suhail
Lyser, a Kashmiri student from Dehradun, told BuzzFeed News that he
saw more than 150 Kashmiris in a WhatsApp group suddenly disappear
from the group. But according to another Kashmiri doctor who lives in
New Delhi, people using WhatsApp due to their travels outside the
state found their accounts intact.
Facebook
has so far been silent on the number of Kashmiris affected. People
whose accounts became extinct will have to register afresh with
WhatsApp and recreate their profiles.
On
August 5, India revoked the special status to Jammu and Kashmir and
bifurcated the state into two Union territories, following which all
communication lines were blocked. India is the largest market for
WhatsApp with some 400 million active users.
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