The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has summoned Meta India's managing director and head to appear before it on September 9, 2026, marking a significant escalation in the inquiry into allegations concerning child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) on Meta platforms. The commission has taken suo motu cognisance of a media report published by BBC Eye and issued a notice to Meta Platforms, Inc. on July 3, 2026, seeking an explanation over the allegations. Meta submitted its response to the commission a week after the notice was issued, following which the NCPCR decided to institute a formal inquiry on August 4, 2026, taking the matter beyond an exchange of correspondence. As per YourStory, this summon represents a significant escalation in the NCPCR's inquiry into allegations that paid advertisements linked to child sexual abuse material were being run on Instagram in India.
As part of the ongoing proceedings, senior executives from Meta India appeared before the NCPCR on Wednesday in connection with the inquiry instituted to investigate the allegations linked to circulation of child sexual exploitative abuse material (CSEAM) on Instagram. According to The Times of India, the inquiry is aimed at determining the facts related to the allegations and examining the response submitted by Meta. The NCPCR inquiry comes alongside separate action by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The NHRC had earlier directed the Delhi Police to conduct a comprehensive probe into allegations that paid advertisements on Meta-owned Instagram promoted Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in India, and to examine whether the tech company and other concerned entities complied with mandatory reporting obligations under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The NHRC sought specific, point-wise reports within two weeks from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Delhi Police Commissioner, with specific instructions for MeitY to confirm compliance with Section 19 of the POCSO Act, 2012.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had directed Meta in the first week of July to disable all advertisements and content facilitating access to CSEAM and explain itself within seven days. In a statement on July 7, 2026, Meta said it had disabled approximately 1.6 lakh accounts in India in the preceding six months, adding that no review process catches every violation. Sources told news agency ANI in early August that Meta had acknowledged that its systems had allowed illegal content to be promoted to a targeted audience and that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had apologised to the government over the issue. However, Meta has not publicly confirmed the reported conversation or the apology. Large platforms process millions of ad submissions daily, and machine learning classifiers clear nearly all of them rather than human reviewers, with these systems trained to spot known patterns such as nudity, banned keywords or flagged web addresses.
The BBC Eye investigation revealed disturbing details about the alleged advertisements, with advertisements using terms including "rape video" and "child video" and directing users to channels on messaging app Telegram, where the material could allegedly be bought for as little as ₹99 (about 80p). According to the BBC World Service report, the advertisements were only published after being approved by Meta's moderation technology. When the BBC flagged one of the adverts to Instagram, the platform reportedly responded a day later, stating that the post did not violate its "community guidelines". The Tech Transparency Project investigation revealed that many of these ads link to harmful "nudification" apps associated with Chinese developers, with researchers identifying more than 250 additional CSAM ads across Meta platforms since the start of August. The report also claimed that the platform's recommendation algorithm surfaced increasingly explicit content to a newly-created test account.
The Tech Transparency Project investigation revealed that many of these ads link to harmful "nudification" apps associated with Chinese developers. TTP Director Katie Paul noted that "What we're talking about here is not simply AI-generated child sex abuse material." Since the start of August, researchers identified more than 250 additional CSAM ads across Meta platforms, with ads displaying innocuous photos of minors before morphing faces into "graphic sex act" videos. When clicked, advertisements directed users to download AI-face swapping apps from Apple and Google app stores. Safety researchers argue that bad actors work around automated systems with coded language, innocuous-looking images and links to third-party apps where the actual material sits outside the platform's view. Because the ad itself looks clean, the classifier approves it, and the advertiser pays for reach. For Meta, which counts India as its largest user base, the inquiry comes as its child safety practices are already under examination on three separate government fronts.
