The Centre has issued a notice to Meta asking its Instagram platform to disable all ads and content facilitating access to “child sexual exploitative and abuse material”, sources said on Sunday.
The notice, issued on Saturday, came after information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw directed his officials on Friday to summon Meta over paid ads allegedly promoting child sexual abuse material on Instagram.
This is the second regulatory action in a week against Meta. On Wednesday, the Centre had issued a notice to the company questioning the planned username feature on WhatsApp, citing concerns that it could increase online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks.
Saturday’s notice asks Meta to provide a detailed explanation within seven days as well as information on the action taken in connection with the notice, government
sources said.
Meta owns the popular social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
A Meta spokesperson said the platform had a “zero tolerance policy” for soliciting or sharing child sexual abuse material in any way, not even in the form of ads.
“We use advanced AI technology to proactively detect violating content and individuals, but we are in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5 billion users and try to evade our detection,” the spokesperson said.
“That is why our expert teams are constantly working to improve our defences, develop new technology to root out predators, block links to violating websites, and share intelligence with other companies so they can take action too.”
A BBC report had flagged the issue of child sexual abuse material on Instagram and raised concern about the effectiveness of the social media platform’s content moderation system.
The BBC investigation revealed that some ads featured images appearing to depict children in sexually explicit situations and directed users to channels on Telegram (not operated by Meta) where such illegal content was allegedly sold for as little as ₹99.
The BBC said it had reported all such ads and the Telegram channels to the Indian authorities. It said it had flagged one such ad to Instagram, which said it hadn’t removed the advertisement as it did not violate the platform’s community standards.
Sources said that even as an intermediary, Meta cannot hide behind the “third-party content” argument if the allegations involve paid ads promoting child sexual abuse material.
While the ministry will review the technical and regulatory aspects of the matter, any agency, authority or individual may file a complaint against the advertiser or platform if they believe offences have been committed, the sources added.