“Zero Tolerance”: Meta To NDTV After Being Summoned Over Child Abuse Ads

New Delhi:

A day after the Centre sent notice to Meta for allegedly carrying paid advertisements linked to child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Instagram, a spokesperson of the company that also owns Facebook told NDTV the company has zero-tolerance for sharing or soliciting CSAM, including in ads.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in its notice told Instagram to remove all content that facilitated access to CSAM and sought a detailed response within seven days.

Failure to provide information could result in legal action under the Information Technology Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. The government demanded immediate corrective action against the “algorithmic amplification” of CSAM.

The spokesperson said Meta uses advanced artificial intelligence to proactively detect such content and also flag users who are linked to this criminal activity.

“We are in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5 billion users and try to evade our detection,” the spokesperson said. “Expert teams are constantly working to improve defenses, develop new technology to root out predators, block links to violating websites,” the spokesperson said, adding Meta shares intelligence with other companies so they can take action too.

The notice comes amid a BBC report that alleged Meta’s recommendation algorithm had been promoting videos containing CSAM, exposing serious gaps in the safeguards. The BBC investigation had also allegedly found advertisements of this nature appearing on Facebook and Instagram, despite Meta’s advertising policies explicitly prohibiting nudity and sexually explicit content.

Instagram is alleged to have shown paid advertisements with terms such as ‘rape video’ and ‘child video’, which directed users to Telegram channels where such content was reportedly on sale.

The government has asked how such advertisements were even approved, what corrective measures Meta has taken since the allegations surfaced, and what safeguards it plans to put in place to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Even as an intermediary, Meta can’t hide behind the third-party content argument or defence if allegations involve 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.