India Orders Meta To Remove Ads Promoting Child Sexual Abuse Material From Instagram

The Indian government has hit Meta Platforms Inc. with a regulatory ultimatum, ordering them to immediately remove all content and paid advertisements on Instagram that facilitate or promote child sexual abuse material.

The emergency directive, issued on Saturday night by India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, gives the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp exactly seven days to explain how these advertisements bypassed its safety screening systems. The ministry is demanding a detailed report on the immediate actions taken, active safeguards, and future prevention strategies.

The government intervention follows a chilling undercover investigation by BBC Eye, which exposed how Instagram's commercial systems were being weaponized. Investigators set up an alias account in India and followed just 10 ordinary profiles focusing on topics like food and daily life.

Within days, without ever searching for adult content, the account was targeted with explicit pornography ads. Shortly after, the feed began displaying paid commercials explicitly promoting child sexual abuse material, using suggestive coded language to redirect users to external channels on the messaging app Telegram, where the illicit media was being offered for sale.

In response to the broader issue, Telegram noted that it has aggressively targeted the trade on its own platform, stating it had removed more than 274,000 groups and channels related to child sexual abuse material in 2026.

Under Indian law, transmitting or publishing obscene material online is heavily criminalized under the Information Technology Act of 2000, alongside the strict Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act of 2012.

Government officials have made it clear that because the offensive content was spread through paid promotional slots, Meta cannot claim immunity under standard internet safe-harbor laws that shield tech platforms from unmoderated user posts.

"The government has issued a stern notice to Meta over child sexual exploitative and abuse material appearing in paid advertisements on Instagram," a senior official in India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology told the BBC.

"The government has ordered Instagram to disable all ads and content promoting or facilitating access" to such material, the official explained, adding that, "The government has sought a detailed explanation from Meta within seven days."

An anonymous government source speaking to the Press Trust of India (PTI) went even further, stressing that tech corporations will face full legal liability for the revenue they pocket from criminal ads.

"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.

While neither Meta nor the Indian government formally confirmed whether the order was part of the direct fallout from the BBC's documentary film, the tech firm confirmed it has already taken down multiple offending ads and suspended the associated accounts.

Meta fiercely pushed back against any insinuation that its algorithms were intentionally pushing child exploitation to vulnerable or malicious demographics to boost profit margins, calling it "categorically inaccurate" to suggest it knowingly and deliberately targeted ads featuring children to users with an inappropriate interest in such material and denied prioritising revenue over safety.

In an official statement, the company expressed its horror at the network but claimed that absolute prevention remains a massive cat-and-mouse game given its global scale.

"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," a Meta spokesperson stated.

The firm reiterated that "child exploitation is a horrific crime" and emphasized that its engineering teams are actively working to fix security vulnerabilities, block predatory web links, and share data with rival tech firms. India's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has announced it is closely reviewing the entire case.