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Meta Faces New Allegations of Running Ads Promoting Child Sexual Abuse Material in India
Confirmed
In Short: A new report by the Tech Transparency Project claims Meta ran hundreds of ads with AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery on Facebook and Instagram, despite recent government orders to remove such content.
Tech Transparency Project (TTP) has revealed that Meta ran hundreds of paid ads with artificial intelligence-generated child sexual abuse imagery on Facebook and Instagram, including several in India, over the past 10 months, according to a new report by US-based campaigners.
The Indian government had previously ordered Meta to remove all ads and content promoting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Instagram following a BBC investigation that found such ads were being run on the platform in India.
About a quarter of the ads, totaling 84, were published in India, with 78 of these ads appearing after the Indian government's order and its meeting with senior Meta officials.
Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer, has filed a petition in India's Supreme Court, citing the BBC's findings, and is calling for social media platforms to identify and report those promoting CSAM.
What's still developing
- After the BBC investigation, several Indian agencies including the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the National Human Rights Commission have said they are examining the matter.
- When the BBC contacted Meta about its investigation, it said that when it becomes aware of apparent child exploitation, it reports it to the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in compliance with its legal obligations.
- The TTP, a research initiative of the non-profit Campaign for Accountability that seeks to hold large technology companies accountable, said it found 332 ads featuring CSAM on Instagram and Facebook running in the US, UK, EU, Australia and India.
- According to TTP, almost all the ads they found start with a photo of a child, and, as the video plays, the photo is manipulated by AI to show them engaging in a graphic sexual act.
- According to TTP, the ad was posted by more than 50 different handles in India over a fortnight in August this year.
- TTP said that it tried reporting ads via Meta's own reporting system and that of the 84 ads that ran in India, they were able to report 55.
- In July, after BBC's investigation, Meta had put out a detailed post about how it fights child exploitation on its apps When the BBC reached out to Meta for a comment, they said, "we've built strong defenses, including systems that block violating ads as well as ongoing monitoring in case we initially miss something: that's why many of the ads flagged to us had already been removed, most had fewer than 200 impressions, and the total ad spend was under $5,000".
- TTP said that when it reached out to Meta for a response, all the ads they reported were removed.