Meta Accused of Running Child‑Sexual‑Abuse Ads in India
A new report by the Washington‑based Tech Transparency Project (TTP) claims that Meta, through its Facebook and Instagram networks, advertised dozens of campaigns featuring child sexual abuse imagery—both authentic photographs and AI‑generated distortions—for roughly the past ten months.
TTP identified 332 such ads worldwide, with 84 running on Indian platforms. The majority surfaced in August 2026, after the Indian government had already ordered Meta to pull all CSAM content following a BBC investigation that revealed Instagram was serving paid adverts that promoted the material.
The ads often began with a real child’s photograph that was transformed by AI into graphic sexual acts. The campaigns linked users to AI‑image generation apps—mainly Chinese—and to the messaging app Telegram, where the content could be purchased for as little as 99 rupees ($1.05).
When the BBC reached out to Meta for comment, the company said it had “built strong defenses” that block violating ads and that most flagged content had already been removed. However, TTP reports that many of the ads were still live when the issue was brought to Meta’s attention, and that most of the identified campaigns were placed by Meta’s Chinese ad‑reseller partners without a clear response.
Indian child‑protection bodies such as the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the National Human Rights Commission are investigating, while the network Just Rights for Children has filed a Supreme Court petition demanding that social media platforms provide mandatory reporting and identification of those promoting CSAM. “Social media companies are clearly flouting Indian laws,” says campaign leader Bhuwan Ribhu.
Cyber‑security officials in India, including Shikha Goel of Telangana’s Cyber Security Bureau, warn that the ease of moving between platforms makes policing these violations harder. They urge regulators to enforce stricter measures against CSAM across all online channels.
Meta maintains it prohibits the promotion of nudify apps and that it reports CSAM cases it detects to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the global reporting hub for child exploitation. The company’s own reports to NCMEC, however, were triggered after the BBC’s investigation.
The emergence of these ads underscores the complex challenge of policing AI‑driven content in real time, as criminal actors flex and manipulate their tactics to evade detection. Regulators and civil society groups continue to push for transparency, stronger moderation systems, and policy enforcement across Meta’s platforms in India and globally.
