The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has summoned Meta representatives to explain how paid advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material appeared on Instagram, with the government now awaiting the company's formal response. IT Secretary Krishnan stated at the CII GCC Business Summit that "We will await the formal response to the notice that we have issued, and thereafter we will take a view based on what the response is." The ministry issued a notice on Saturday evening ordering Instagram to disable all advertisements and content promoting and facilitating access to Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM), with the government demanding a detailed explanation within seven days from Meta. IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had directed MeitY officials to summon Meta over Instagram ads allegedly promoting child sexual abuse material, with the ministry demanding an explanation and information from the company on action that had been taken.
Meta has directly addressed the controversy surrounding child sexual abuse material advertisements on Instagram, describing child exploitation as 'a horrific crime' and committing to aggressive combat efforts. According to PTI, the company stated: "We're aware of recent news reports about Instagram ads in India that violated our policies against child exploitation. And we want to be clear: we take these concerns seriously, we never want this content on our platforms, and we're committed to improving our efforts to combat it." The company emphasized that it never deliberately targets child abuse ads and uses technology to identify accounts with suspicious activity related to children, automatically removing over 4 million accounts last year globally. Meta categorically denied suggestions that it deliberately targets ads featuring children to people based on inappropriate interests, stating that quite the opposite, they use technology to identify accounts that have shown potentially suspicious activity related to children.
Meta has deployed advanced artificial intelligence detection tools capable of spotting when users post suspicious links directing traffic off its platforms, in combination with other indicators of child exploitative behaviour. As reported by PTI, the company has strengthened AI-powered enforcement against child exploitation, with newer systems covering languages spoken by 98% of people online. In the last six months alone, this led to the removal of 1,60,000 accounts in India for posting suspicious links linked to exploitative activity. Globally, technological upgrades enabled the automatic removal of more than 4 million suspicious accounts last year, alongside the takedown of 36 million pieces of content related to child exploitation. The company explained that these tools identify when individuals post suspicious off-platform links in coordination with other signals indicating child exploitative activity. However, experts note that AI systems consistently fail at understanding intent and context in novel material, as highlighted by Nilesh Jahagirdar, co-founder and vice-president of marketing and solutions at xcube LABS.
Meta has outlined its zero-tolerance approach to child exploitation, with detailed and robust policies against child nudity, abuse and exploitation that include sharing or soliciting of child exploitation imagery, inappropriate interactions with teens, and the sexualisation of minors. According to PTI, the company's advertising review process combines automated systems with human reviewers to detect and remove policy-violating ads, while acknowledging that no system can catch every violation. Ads are screened before they run and remain subject to continuous review and re-review, with users also able to report suspected violations. Meta monitors advertiser behaviour in addition to individual ads, and may reject ads or restrict advertiser business accounts, ad accounts, pages and user accounts found violating its policies. The company pointed out that it continues to strengthen its ad review systems and enforcement to keep bad actors off its platforms.
A BBC Eye investigation has revealed that Meta's recommendation algorithms have promoted videos containing CSAM content, despite the company's policies prohibiting nudity and sexually explicit content. The investigation found that the platform recommended sexually suggestive content even when users had not searched for such material. The initial suggested post featured women in India sharing about food, weather and daily lives, but also contained revealing content and sexually suggestive material. Days later, users were recommended ads featuring children in sexually suggestive situations with links to Telegram channels. After the report, Meta issued a statement saying they have a zero-tolerance policy for soliciting or sharing CSAM, including in advertisements. According to PTI, before the cases were brought to its attention, Meta's enforcement systems had already identified and disabled several of the violating ads and accounts, with subsequent investigation leading to additional action including removing further ads, disabling accounts, and blocking URLs linked to policy-violating content.
Meta has implemented a cross-industry intelligence sharing approach to combat CSAM more effectively, with the company stating it shares intelligence with other companies so they can take action too. As reported by PTI, the company highlighted its founding membership of the tech coalition's Lantern programme for cross-platform intelligence sharing on predatory accounts, and efforts to block links to third-party websites hosting abusive content. Meta emphasized that it works with the industry and law enforcement to combat online child exploitation beyond its own platforms. The company pointed out that it reports apparent child exploitation cases to law enforcement through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), publishes global and India-specific transparency reports, and has appointed statutory compliance officers under India's IT Rules. Experts emphasize that digital intermediaries should invest in reporting offenders to law enforcement agencies rather than just disabling accounts, as noted by Bhuwan Ribhu, founder of Just Rights for Children. The company stated it continues to strengthen its ad review systems and enforcement to keep bad actors off its platforms and better protect users, with protecting people who use their platforms remaining at the centre of how they build and enforce their advertising standards.
