Social media giant Meta is under the scanner following instructions from the Union Minister to summon officials in connection with Instagram-hosted advertisements promoting child sexual abuse.
According to sources, the ministry will seek an explanation regarding the advertisements. Officials will be questioned on how it allowed its platform to host such advertisements and what it is doing to stem such content.
Former Supreme Court judge Madan Lokur told the BBC that the findings raised serious concerns and suggested that the Supreme Court could take suo motu cognisance of the issue. He said social media platforms cannot avoid responsibility despite legal protections that shield them from liability for user-generated content.
The matter surfaced after, BBC reported that Instagram had been running advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material in India. In its report, the agency said that it had seen ads that use highly objectionable titles, including “rape video” and “child video”. It found that the ads were linked to Telegram channels where they could buy such material for just Rs 99.
To which the social media platform responded 24 hours later, saying the posts didn’t violate its “community guidelines”. It further highlighted that it ëhad disabled several of those advertisements and suspended the accounts that posted them.
Reportedly, BBC had created an alias account in India after observing that the platform was recommending sexually suggestive content even without users searching for it. It followed 10 profiles posting sexual content to study Instagram’s recommendation system. Within a week, the account began receiving advertisements featuring women offering video calls and explicit sexual content. Days later, it was shown advertisements depicting children with adults in sexually suggestive situations, along with links to Telegram channels. Overall, the account encountered around 30 unique advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material, some of which appeared through multiple advertiser accounts, in addition to about 20 advertisements featuring adult pornography.
The company said it removed additional advertisements, disabled more accounts and blocked URLs linked to content violating its policies after reviewing the BBC’s findings. Meta acknowledged that “no system is perfect” and said its review process may fail to detect every policy violation. It added that it continues to use proactive detection technology even after advertisements go live and allows users to report violating content.