On Tuesday (July 7), Meta released a detailed blog post detailing the steps it is taking against content related to the sexual exploitation and abuse of children on its platform. This blog post comes at a time when the Central Government has sent a notice to Meta following reports of advertisements containing content related to child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEAM) on Instagram.
In the blog, Meta said that sexual exploitation of children is a serious crime and the company takes action against such content on its platform every day. The company acknowledged recent reports over Instagram ads in India and said that any ads or content that violates its policies is not allowed on the platform.
**Meta Action Figures**
Meta claimed to have removed more than 4 million suspicious accounts from Facebook and Instagram across the world in the last one year. Additionally, more than 36 million pieces of content related to child sexual exploitation were removed. Regarding India, the company said that in the last six months it used AI tools to remove 1,60,000 accounts that were sharing links to suspected child sexual exploitation activities.
According to the company, between October and December 2025, 13 million pieces of content related to child sexual exploitation were removed from Facebook and Instagram. More than 96 percent of this content was identified by the company itself and removed before any user complaints were received.
**Rebuttal to allegations**
Meta also refutes allegations that it knowingly serves children-related ads to people who have a disproportionate interest in children. The company said its systems are designed to identify such suspicious accounts and take action against them.
The company claims that its system has already identified several ads and their associated accounts that violate the policy. Subsequently, additional advertisements were removed, several accounts were closed, and URLs associated with objectionable content were blocked during the investigation. Information is also shared with law enforcement agencies.
Meta said that whenever it receives a case related to sexual exploitation of children, it shares the information with the US-based organization NCMEC. In India, this information reaches the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal through NCMEC. The company claims that it reports more such cases than any other tech company.
Meta also said that she is a founding member of Tech Coalition’s ‘Lantern’ program. Under this program, tech companies share information about suspicious accounts with each other. According to the company, more than 2 million signals have been shared through this program, resulting in more than 3,50,000 enforcement actions.
What is the problem?
This controversy started after a media report. The report claimed that such paid advertisements were running on Instagram which were promoting content related to sexual exploitation of children and were sending users to other platforms.
Following this, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav directed officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to issue summons to Meta. On July 4, the ministry issued a notice to Meta, ordering it to immediately remove all advertisements and content related to child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM). The company was also asked to give a detailed reply within seven days.
According to government sources, Meta has not yet given a formal response to the notice. As a result, the blog post published on Tuesday is being seen as the company’s public stance, while an official response from the ministry is still awaited.
