Meta Agrees to Report Child Safety Matters to Law Enforcement in India

Meta has agreed to report child safety-related matters, including child sexual abuse cases, to law enforcement agencies in India, Indian media reported on Tuesday, citing government sources.

News agency PTI quoted a Meta spokesperson as saying the cases would now be reported to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre.

The US tech giant has come under fire in India in recent months over alleged paid advertisements promoting AI-generated child sexual abuse material on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

"Meta has agreed to report child safety-related matters to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. It is a first step towards making the platforms safe for children and much more needs to be done," news agency ANI quoted unnamed government sources as saying.

The Indian government is engaging with other online platforms to ensure that they identify and remove such content proactively, news agency PTI cited government sources as saying.

ANI and PTI also quoted sources saying that the government would take action against platforms that fail to take proactive measures to ensure online child safety.

The news agencies were told by the sources that online safety of children is a "fundamental principle" for any social media platform operating in India and was "non-negotiable."

Meta under scrutiny in India

In July, an investigative report by the BBC found that Instagram had been running paid advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material in India.

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) later ordered Instagram to disable all ads and content promoting and facilitating access to such material.

The ministry also demanded a detailed explanation on the issue and held several rounds of discussions with top Meta executives.

Last week, India's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) summoned the managing director and head of Meta India over its inquiry into alleged ads related to child sexual exploitative and abuse material.

Meanwhile, a US-based nonprofit Tech Transparency Project (TTP) published a report saying that it had found more than 300 ads with child sexual abuse material that ran on Facebook and Instagram this year.

It said that 84 of the ads ran in India — 78 of them after the Indian government directive to Meta to remove any Instagram ads promoting child sexual abuse material.