WhatsApp Appoints Komal Lahiri As Grievance Officer For India

Komal Lahiri has been appointed as the grievance officer for WhatsApp India. According to an update on its website, Komal Lahiri, Senior Director of Global Customer Operations and Localisation at WhatsApp Inc since March 2018, will look into user complaints and issues related to fake or obscene messages. The complaints will directly go to her email (or postal mail), according to Financial Express.

“To contact the Grievance Officer, please send an email with your complaint or concern and sign with an electronic signature. If you’re contacting us about a specific account, please include your phone number in full international format, including the country code,” WhatsApp said in a statement.

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Background

Lahiri, earlier worked as a senior director at Facebook and Instagram, was appointed as the 'Grievance Officer for India' after the Indian government’s emphasised on the need to find a way to curb the menace of fake messages on the Facebook-owned mobile messaging platform. According to sources, the appointment of the grievance officer was made at the end of August.

Komal is a BCom graduate from the Pune University and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Institute of Management Development and Research, Pune. Before WhatsApp, Lahiri worked as Director, Product Planning and Operations of Shared Services for Facebook in August 2014. Later, she was appointed as Senior Director of Community Operations and Head of Community Support at the company for two years and nine months.

Fake news

The Indian government has insisted WhatsApp develop procedures to combat fake or false messages which have been on the rise and been a source of spreading misinformation. India remains WhatsApp's biggest market at more than 200 million users. Earlier this year they introduced a 'forward' label to help users identify messages and also limited it limited message forwards to five chats at a time.

Feature Image Credit: Facebook