Published Jul 04, 2026 | 11:52 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 04, 2026 | 11:54 AM
Meta owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
Synopsis: Not only did a BBC investigation find that Instagram was running paid ads promoting child sexual abuse, they also found that even users who were not searching for these were seeing it. The Indian government is now seeking an explanation and an ex-judge is demanding action from the Supreme Court.
Meta has run into trouble with the Indian government after a BBC Eye investigation revealed that Instagram was running paid ads promoting child sexual abuse material in India.
Following the highly disturbing revelations, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has ordered his officials to summon Meta and get an explanation on how the ads were allowed on Instagram, the Press Trust of India quoted sources as saying.
The BBC had reported that the ads featured content that promoted “rape video” and “child video” and took users to Telegram channels where the content they promoted was on sale for Rs 99.
Damningly, the BBC in its report said that when it alerted Instagram about one of the ads, the response they were given was that “our review team found that the advertiser’s ad does not go against our community standards”.
By the time the BBC contacted Meta—the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp—there was an acknowledgement of the presence of these offending ads. Meta said they had removed several of these ads and suspended the accounts behind them.
Meta admitted to the BBC that “no system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations.”
“We continue to run proactive detection technology on ads once they’re live, and anyone can report an ad to us that they think breaks our rules,” it told the channel.
BBC reporters, as part of their investigation, had set up an Instagram account in India. It did not take long before they found content featuring women in revealing clothing and “using sexual innuendo in their posts” being pushed across to them, despite them not searching for any such material.
Before even a week had passed, ads of “clearly naked couples having sex” began landing in their account. A few days later, more worryingly came the child abuse ads, including one of a “boy and girl, both of whom appeared to be about 12 years old, engaging in a sexual act”.
Former Supreme Court Justice Madan Lokur told the BBC that Instagram “making money by participating in a criminal activity” was deeply concerning.
“This is a serious enough issue for the Supreme Court of India to take suo moto cognisance [when a court initiates legal proceedings without waiting for a case to be brought by someone else] and get the government to act against any social media platform,” he was quoted as saying.
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(Edited by R Rajesh Kumar.)
