Aug. 6 (UPI) -- WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts linked to scammers around the world, Meta said. WhatsApp rolled out a new anti-scam measure to alert users of scams. Many of the scams were tied to criminal organizations in South East Asia, according to Meta.

WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts that were “linked to criminal scam centers” targeting people online around that world, its parent company Meta said this week. The account deletions, which Meta said took place over the first six months of the year,

To start a guest chat, an app user would need to invite a non-app user to an online chat via a link. The invited party does not need to have WhatsApp installed on their phone nor have a WhatsApp account, and the sender can share the online chat link on any platform they choose -- text, email or social media.