Meta says it removed violating ads, disabled accounts amid reports on child abuse ads

NEW DELHI: Meta said it had removed advertisements and disabled accounts found to violate its policies against child exploitation after the Centre issued a notice to the social media giant, ordering it to take down the Instagram ads promoting child sexual abuse.

In a statement, the company said, “Child exploitation is a horrific crime and every day, we work aggressively to fight this kind of abuse both on and off our platforms.”

“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. Before these cases were brought to our attention, our enforcement systems had already identified and disabled several of the violating ads and the accounts behind them. Our subsequent investigation led to additional action, including removing further ads, disabling accounts, and blocking URLs linked to policy-violating content,” Meta said.

Highlighting its enforcement efforts, the company said,” Globally, last year alone, thanks to improvements to our technology, we automatically removed more than 4 million suspicious accounts from Facebook and Instagram, on top of the 36 million pieces of content we removed for child exploitation.”

Meta said they 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 160,000 accounts in India, ” it said.

Rejecting suggestions that it knowingly targeted advertisements featuring children to users based on inappropriate interests, the company said it used technology to identify suspicious activity related to children and had automatically removed more than four million such accounts globally last year.

The company said it employs automated and manual reviews to enforce its advertising and community standards, adding that advertisements are reviewed before they are published and remain subject to review and re-review. It said advertiser accounts found violating its policies could also face restrictions.

Advertisements are reviewed before they are published and remain subject to review and re-review. It added that advertiser accounts found violating its Advertising Standards, Community Standards or other Meta policies may be restricted from advertising across its platforms.

Reiterating its zero-tolerance policy, Meta said its standards prohibit child nudity, abuse and exploitation, including the sharing or solicitation of child exploitation imagery, inappropriate interactions with teenagers and the sexualisation of minors.

Meta said it reports apparent child exploitation cases to law enforcement authorities through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In India, such reports are routed to the national cyber-crime reporting portal in compliance with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and related rules.

The company said it would continue investing in technology, strengthening its ad review processes and working with law enforcement agencies and industry partners to combat online child exploitation.

Last week, issuing the notice over Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said, “MeitY has ordered Instagram to disable all ads and content promoting and facilitating access to CSEAM.” The ministry had also demanded a detailed explanation within 7 days.

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had directed MeitY officials to summon Meta over Instagram ads allegedly promoting child sexual abuse material. (ANI)