Warning: Some details of this report may disturb readers.
A recent report has found that Meta has paid for hundreds of ads to be run containing artificial intelligence-generated images and videos of child sexual abuse.
According to this report by American activists working on the issue of accountability and transparency of tech companies, dozens of these advertisements shown in the last 10 months have been run in India.
This report comes two months after the Indian Government's order in which Meta was ordered to remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and advertisements from Instagram. This step was taken after investigation by BBC-I. In this investigation, it was found that Instagram is running advertisements promoting such content in India for money.
Washington-based Tech Transparency Project (TTP) reported that they found 332 ads containing CSAM on Facebook and Instagram. Most of these (274) were conducted in the month of August this year.
When the BBC wrote to Meta about these findings, they said in a statement: "We do not tolerate the Nudify app or any form of child exploitation, whether in real life or created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). Criminals are always changing their tactics to avoid detection, which is why we enforce our efforts to detect them more vigorously."
The TTP report published on Tuesday said that they have identified several real children, including children of European royal families. Their pictures have been used in advertisements and have been altered using AI.
According to TTP, even after informing Meta of the results of its research, such advertisements continued to be run on the company's platform.
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Nearly one-fourth (84) of the ads were run in India. Of these, 78 were published after the Government of India removed CSAM from Instagram and met with Meta officials.
Following the BBC's investigation, several Indian agencies, including the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the National Human Rights Commission, have said that they are investigating the matter.
Child sexual exploitation and promotion of violent material is a criminal offense in India. Meta's policy states that no content can be shown in advertisements that sexually exploits children or puts them at risk.
When the BBC contacted Meta about their investigation, they said that when they become aware that children are being exploited they report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), as required by law.
NCMEC is a global system for reporting sexual exploitation and violence against children on the Internet.
But according to Bhuvan Ribhu, founder of 'Just Rights for Children', a network of more than 250 organizations working on the issue of violence against children in India, this is not enough.
'Just Rights for Children', citing BBC's investigation, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court demanding guidelines for social media platforms. Under this, a demand has been made to make it mandatory for them to identify those spreading CSAM and report it to the agencies.
Violation of Indian laws
Bhuvan Ribhu told the BBC, "Our child rights protection laws require us to report child sexual exploitation material to Indian investigative agencies, but by failing to do so, social media companies are clearly violating Indian laws."
TTP, part of the Campaign for Accountability, which demands accountability from big tech companies, said they found 332 CSAM ads run on Instagram and Facebook in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia and India. According to him, he has reported all the advertisements to NCMEC.
According to TTP, almost all ads start with a photo of a child and as the video starts playing, AI changes the photo to show the child in a sexual act.
In the description of an ad run in India, TTP wrote: Image of a girl who appears to be under the age of 13, transformed by AI into a sexual object. An accompanying English voiceover says, "There are no restrictions. All the characters are real people and there are many choices. This is the AI that humans use."
The BBC has not seen this advertisement.
According to TTP, this advertisement was posted by 50 different handles within two weeks of August this year.
After the BBC investigation came to light in July, Meta wrote in a detailed post on its website about the steps it was taking to fight child exploitation on its apps.
It said, "If anyone finds an ad on our platform that violates our policies, they can report it."
TTP said they tried to report 84 ads that ran in India using Meta's reporting system. They were able to report 55 advertisements. Meta offers the option to report ads only when they are 'live'.
For 43 of these, TTP responded, "We have looked at and found that these ads do not violate our advertising standards."
For 11 of these, he was told that they had already been removed. There was no response to one advertisement.
side of meta
When the BBC contacted Meta to get their take on the matter, they said: "We have put in place robust defences, including systems that block offending adverts and continuously monitor them if we miss any early on. As a result, many of the adverts reported to us had already been removed. Most had fewer than 200 impressions and a total spend of less than $5,000."
According to TTP, when they contacted Meta for a response, all the ads were removed.
This experience was similar to what happened during the BBC investigation. When the BBC reported an ad containing CSAM using Meta's reporting system, the platform did not remove it.
When the BBC later asked Meta for a response, they said they had already disabled several ads and suspended the accounts that posted them. The company said that following the BBC's investigation, they have removed additional advertisements, disabled accounts and blocked URLs of other content that violates their policies.
TTP said most of the 332 ads it found directed users to apps that generate images and videos using AI. These are mainly apps made by Chinese developers.
The report alleges that promoting these apps through advertisements containing CSAM means that these apps can also be used to create or view CSAM.
Meta says it prohibits the promotion of nudify apps that use AI to create fake nude or sexually explicit images without consent.
Shikha Goyal, one of India's top cyber police officers and director of the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau, told the BBC that a major challenge related to CSAM is "the ease with which users can move from one platform to another. This makes it difficult to catch them."
He said, "We hope that in this latest conversation with social media intermediaries, the government will discuss this issue and give them appropriate instructions."
China connection
The ads found in the BBC investigation also took users to another app, Telegram, where they could purchase the content for just Rs 99.
Telegram then told the BBC that the company uses both technology and humans for moderation to remove child sexual abuse and violent content (SSA) from the app. He said that the result is that, "Telegram has almost completely stopped the spread of CSAM from its platform to the general public."
While general posts can be uploaded to Meta's platform without restrictions, Meta says each ad is reviewed before appearing on the platform.
Its review system, which relies largely on automated technology, examines the ad's images, video, text, audio, who is being targeted, and which link the user is being directed to.
Following the BBC investigation, Meta said that "no system is perfect" and that "criminal actors continue to seek to abuse our platforms, including advertising systems".
