India’s government has ordered Meta to remove child sexual abuse content
The Hindu newspaper reported.
The action came after a BBC Eye investigation found Instagram was running paid adverts promoting child sexual abuse material in India. It found the ads used certain terms to take users to Telegram app channels where they were asked to buy such material.
"The government has issued a stern notice to Meta over child sexual exploitative and abuse material appearing in paid advertisements on Instagram," local news outlets reported the ministry as claiming.
“The government has also demanded a detailed explanation on the action taken and other relevant information within seven days. A notice in this regard was issued on Saturday.”
The government sought a report on how such advertisements were approved by Meta, what corrective measures had been taken since the allegations surfaced, and what safeguards it planned to put in place to prevent similar incidents in the future, according to PTI.
An unnamed government source told the news agency that Meta could not hide behind the third-party content defence if allegations involved paid ads promoting child sexual abuse material.
"If the allegations are found to be true, they will be held accountable for the advertisements, for which the platform receives revenue," the source said.
Neither the Indian government nor Meta confirmed whether the notice was directly linked to the BBC's investigation.
The Independent has reached out to the IT ministry and Meta for comment.
The investigation found that Instagram served sexualised advertisements to a user who had never searched for such content.
As part of its investigation, the BBC created an alias account in India and followed 10 Instagram handles featuring women posting about food, weather and daily life. It found adverts on the feed featuring women soliciting video calls and showing couples having sex. Days later, it also got advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material, with links to Telegram channels where it was allegedly sold.
It even showed adverts with wording suggesting that girls had been sexually assaulted.
In India, publishing or transmitting obscene material online is an offence under the Information Technology Act of 2000. Child sexual abuse material involving anyone under 18 is a serious criminal offence under the Information Technology Act as well as the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
Meta's policy bans ads that contain adult nudity, genitals, or content that sexually exploits or endangers children.
In response to the findings of the BBC investigation, Meta said that it disabled several adverts and suspended the accounts posting such content. It added that “no system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations".
"We continue to run proactive detection technology on ads once they're live, and anyone can report an ad to us that they think breaks our rules," Meta said.
In a separate statement, the American tech giant said it “has a zero tolerance policy for soliciting or sharing CSAM, including in 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. That is why our expert teams are constantly working to improve our defenses, develop new technology to root out predators, block links to violating websites, and share intelligence with other companies so they can take action too.”
Meta said "child exploitation is a horrific crime" and that it was working aggressively to fight any gaps on its apps.
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