Meta says child abuse ‘horrific crime’, details fight against CSAM ads on Instagram after govt notice

Meta, facing India government's notice over child sexual abuse advertisements on Instagram, has published a blog detailing their efforts in combatting the ‘horrific crime’. In the blog, Meta has penned, the Mark Zuckerberg-helmed company has detailed their ad review mechanism, artificial intelligence tools, and enforcement record to tackle child sexual abuse materials across platforms.

Meta calls child exploitation a horrific crime

Describing child exploitation as a horrific crime, Meta said it works aggressively, every single day, to combat such abuse both on its platforms and beyond them.

Meta acknowledged the recent controversy directly, stating: "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."

Meta denies deliberately targeting Child abuse ads

Meta pushed back firmly against suggestions that it knowingly directs advertisements featuring children towards users based on inappropriate interests, calling this categorically inaccurate.

It insisted the reality is the opposite of what has been alleged. "Quite the opposite; we use technology to identify accounts that have shown potentially suspicious activity related to children, and we automatically removed over 4 million of these accounts last year," the company said.

Meta, headquartered in Menlo Park, California, owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, three of the world's most widely used digital platforms.

Enforcement action followed internal investigation

According to Meta, its systems had already flagged and disabled a number of the offending advertisements and the accounts responsible for them before the complaints were formally brought to its attention. A follow-up investigation prompted further action. "Our subsequent investigation led to additional action, including removing further ads, disabling accounts, and blocking URLs linked to policy-violating content," Meta said.

Globally last year, technological upgrades enabled the automatic removal of more than 4 million suspicious accounts across Facebook and Instagram, alongside the takedown of 36 million pieces of content related to child exploitation, Meta disclosed.

AI tools credited with removals in India

Meta said it 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. "We have advanced AI detection tools set up to identify when individuals post suspicious off-platform links in coordination with other signals indicating child exploitative activity. In the last six months alone, this led to the removal of 1,60,000 accounts in India," the company said.

Government notice preceded the blog

Meta's blog follows a stern notice issued last week by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) concerning Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material, or CSEAM, appearing in paid advertisements on Instagram. The ministry directed Instagram to disable all advertisements and content that promote or facilitate access to such material, and demanded a comprehensive explanation from the company within seven days.

The regulatory intervention followed instructions from IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who had asked MeitY officials to summon Meta over allegations that Instagram advertisements were promoting child sexual abuse material.

BBC investigation triggered scrutiny

Scrutiny intensified after a BBC investigation alleged that Meta's recommendation algorithm had actively promoted videos containing child sexual abuse material, pointing to significant gaps in the platform's safeguards.

The same investigation reportedly uncovered advertisements of this nature circulating on both Facebook and Instagram, despite Meta's advertising policies explicitly banning nudity and sexually explicit content.

Instagram is alleged to have carried paid advertisements using search terms such as "rape video" and "child video", which reportedly redirected users to Telegram channels where such material was allegedly being sold.