Meta has agreed to report cases related to child sexual abuse and other child safety concerns to appropriate law enforcement agencies in India, as the Centre steps up its engagement with social media platforms over harmful and illegal content online.
The development comes amid heightened scrutiny of Meta over the alleged circulation and promotion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through advertisements on Instagram.
The government has said that the online safety of children is a “fundamental principle” for every social media platform operating in India and remains “non-negotiable”. Officials described Meta’s commitment as an important first step towards strengthening safeguards for children online.
A Meta spokesperson said the company would now report child safety matters directly to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).
“Protecting children on our platforms is a priority for us and we’re committed to working with the government to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held responsible,” the spokesperson said.
Why the move is significant
Social media platforms can be used to circulate or facilitate access to child sexual abuse material and other forms of child exploitation. Reporting such cases directly to Indian law enforcement agencies is intended to ensure that serious incidents are not dealt with only through a platform’s internal content-moderation systems.
The move comes after concerns were raised over the presence of advertisements on Instagram allegedly linked to child sexual abuse material. The Centre has been engaging with social media platforms to ensure that harmful content is proactively identified and removed.
The government has also warned that platforms that fail to adopt adequate proactive measures to protect children online could face action. Discussions with other platforms are continuing, officials said.
What Meta’s Community Standards say about child safety
Meta’s Community Standards have strict rules against child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity. The company says it has a zero-tolerance approach towards content involving the sexual exploitation of children, including the sharing or solicitation of child exploitation imagery, inappropriate interactions with teenagers and the sexualisation of minors.
Meta also says its advertising policies require all advertisements to comply with its standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity. The company has said it uses artificial intelligence and other detection systems to identify violating content and accounts, while also working with law enforcement and other organisations to combat child exploitation.
Instagram’s Community Guidelines similarly prohibit sexual content involving minors and state that the platform has zero tolerance for sharing such material or threatening to post intimate images of others. The guidelines also allow users to report content they believe violates the platform’s rules.
Meta has said that when it becomes aware of apparent child exploitation, it reports such cases to law enforcement authorities in accordance with applicable laws. In India, the company has previously said that reports were made through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the national cybercrime reporting system.
Government scrutiny of Meta
The latest development follows months of scrutiny of Meta in India over alleged child sexual exploitation-related advertisements on Instagram.
In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a notice to Meta over advertisements allegedly promoting or facilitating access to child sexual exploitative and abuse material. The ministry sought details about how the advertisements were allowed to run and what safeguards were in place to prevent similar incidents.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) also initiated an inquiry into the matter and summoned Meta’s India leadership over the alleged advertisements.
The issue has also come amid a wider legal debate over the obligations of social media intermediaries to report child sexual abuse material to Indian authorities.
A recent Supreme Court proceeding has focused on whether platforms are consistently complying with reporting obligations under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The court’s 2024 judgment had held that intermediaries cannot rely on safe-harbour protections if they fail to comply with applicable POCSO reporting requirements.
Meta’s latest commitment therefore marks a significant development in the government’s push for greater accountability from social media platforms operating in India, particularly when it comes to protecting children from online sexual exploitation and abuse.