Meta on Tuesday published a detailed blog outlining its efforts to combat child sexual abuse material across its apps. The post cited AI-powered detection, ad review systems and large-scale enforcement actions. This came days after the government issued a notice to the social media company over reports of Instagram advertisements promoting such content.
Meta described child exploitation as a horrific crime and said it works aggressively every day to fight this kind of abuse on and off its platforms. The company stated it takes concerns seriously and never wants such content on its platforms. It is committed to improving efforts to combat it.
Meta called it categorically inaccurate to suggest that it knowingly targets ads featuring children to people based on inappropriate interest. Instead, the company uses technology to identify accounts showing potentially suspicious activity related to children. It automatically removed over 4 million such accounts last year.
Meta said it has strengthened AI-powered enforcement against child exploitation. Newer systems cover languages spoken by 98 percent of people online. Last year it removed over 4 million suspicious accounts and 36 million pieces of child exploitation content globally. In India, AI tools helped remove 160,000 accounts in the past six months for posting suspicious links.
The company noted that its enforcement systems had already identified and disabled several violating ads and accounts before the cases were brought to its attention. Its investigation led to further action including removing ads, disabling accounts and blocking URLs.
Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It said advanced AI detection tools identify suspicious off-platform links. In the last six months this led to removal of 160,000 accounts in India.
Government sources said Meta’s official response to the notice is awaited. The focus will be on corrective measures taken by the company. Last week the government issued a notice to Meta on child sexual exploitative material in paid advertisements on Instagram. The ministry ordered Instagram to disable all such ads and demanded a detailed explanation within seven days.
The action followed reports that Meta’s recommendation algorithm had been promoting videos containing child sexual abuse material. Advertisements with terms like rape video and child video allegedly directed users to Telegram channels. Meta said its advertising review combines automated systems with human reviewers. No system can catch every violation but ads are screened before they run and remain under continuous review.
Meta monitors advertiser behaviour and may restrict accounts found violating policies. The company continues to strengthen its ad review systems to keep bad actors off its platforms.
