Ammon News - WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts linked to scammers targeting people around the world in the first half of this year, its parent company Meta says.

Many were tied to scam centres run by organised criminals in South East Asia, who often used forced labour in their operations, according to the social media giant.

Meta made the announcement as WhatsApp rolled out new anti-scam measures to alert users to potential fraudulent activity, such as a user being added to a group chat by someone not in their contacts list.

The crackdown targets an increasingly common tactic in which criminals hijack WhatsApp accounts or add users to group chats promoting fake investment schemes and other scams.

Meta said WhatsApp "proactively detected and took down accounts before scam centres were able to operationalise them." BBC