'Categorically Inaccurate': Meta Denies Deliberately Targeting Instagram Child Sexual Abuse Ads

Last Updated:July 07, 2026, 22:31 IST

Meta said it had begun disabling several of these "violating ads" even before the cases were highlighted, while denying that it deliberately targeted child exploitative ads.

A day after the Centre issued a stern message to Meta over Instagram ads featuring child sexual abuse content, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company has issued a detailed response, saying it was aware of the reports and took these concerns seriously.

“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," Meta said in a blog post.

The company said it had begun disabling several of these “violating ads" even before the cases were highlighted, adding that additional action was taken after further investigation. It also said it was “inaccurate to suggest" that the company deliberately targeted ads featuring children to people based on an “inappropriate interest in children".

160,000 Meta Accounts Removed

The company said it had removed 160,000 accounts in India over the past six months for sharing suspicious off-platform links connected to child exploitative activity. It admitted that no systems are perfect and that “determined criminals will continue to try to exploit our platform, including through our advertising systems."

“Our review process may not catch every violation, but we’re continuously working to stay ahead of bad actors through our robust ad review process," it added, noting that subsequent investigation had led to blocking more ads and URLs linked to content that violated Meta’s policies.

“It is categorically inaccurate to suggest that we’d knowingly and deliberately target ads featuring children to people based on an inappropriate interest in children. Quite the opposite; we use technology to identify accounts that have shown potentially suspicious activity related to children, and we automatically removed over 4 million of these accounts last year," it said.

Centre’s Stern Notice To Meta

The Central government has issued a stern notice to Meta, ordering the platform to immediately remove Instagram advertisements promoting child sexual abuse content.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Saturday ordered Instagram to remove all content that facilitated access to child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) and sought a detailed response from Meta within seven days.

Meta faced intense scrutiny over its content moderation policies after a BBC investigation found that Instagram was displaying paid advertisements that promoted CSEAM-related material in India. The ads reportedly linked users to channels on the messaging app Telegram and claimed users could buy the alleged child sexual abuse material for as little as Rs 99.

About the Author

Aveek Banerjee

Aveek Banerjee is a Senior Sub Editor at News18. Based in Noida with a Master's in Global Studies, Aveek has more than three years of experience in digital media and news curation, specialising in int...Read More

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