Meta, that is undergoing atleast two legal challenges in India, has spotlighted its AI-fueled app scanning initiatives to address rising online safety concerns, especially around minors. In a blog published on Tuesday, Meta said it implemented a major crackdown in India using AI detection systems over the last six months. As part of this drive, Instagram eliminated over 160,000 accounts in India for sharing questionable off-platform links linked to child exploitative activities.
The justification from Meta comes in response to an investigation by BBC Eye that alleged that Instagram has been running paid ads promoting child exploitation in its biggest market.
So here’s what happened
Earlier this week, the Indian government issued a notice to Meta directing it to disable all ads and content related to Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) with immediate effect, following BBC Eye’s claims.
“We’re in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5 billion users and try to evade our detection,” the social networking giant said. “Our ad review system automatically checks ads for policy violations before they run. Anyone on our platforms can report ads if they believe they violate our policies.”
Amid the ongoing streneous situations in India, Meta acknowledged that criminals keep returning to its apps despite multiple layers of safety measures.
“Our review process may not catch every violation, but we’re continuously working to stay ahead of bad actors through our robust ad review process,” it noted.
Meta is betting big on AI this year. It said its deploying advanced AI systems to experiment with more sophisticated content enforcement tools to cover the languages spoken by 98 percent users on its platform. Previously, its systems could identify and understand around 80 dialects.
Its mentioned using AI to identify and delete suspicious accounts across Facebook and Instagram with over four million accounts wiped off last year.
“Between October and December 2025, we removed 13 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content from Facebook and Instagram — over 96 percent of which we found and proactively addressed, before anyone reported it,” the platform noted.
On July 6, India;s IT Ministry gave Meta a week to present a detailed explaination how ads containing inappropriate content related to minors were even allowed on Instagram in the first place.
Meta under fire in India
Meta has tried to maintain a very compliant relation with the Indian government over the years as the country serves as one of its biggest global markets.
These last few weeks, however, have proven to be quite challenging for the company with back-to-back issues.
Before this Instagram situation erupted, Meta had found itself in heat over WhatsApp’s upcoming username feature.
The messaging platform recently asked its users to start reserving Telegram and Instagram-like usernames so they could skip sharing contact numbers to connect with people on the app.
The development sparked privacy concerns among users, many of whom said the feature could allow anybody to select any username which could subsequently fuel more impersonation and financial scams on the platform.
The outcry caught the attention of the Indian authorities who asked Meta to explain why an action should not be taken against this upcoming feature. WhatsApp has been given until the end of the week to respond to the government. The tensions escalated further to include Telegram and Signal also to submit an official explanation on their respective username features.
India is evidently taking aggressive measures to clamp down the growing areas of cybercrimes. Earlier this year in February, the country amended its IT Rule to flag and erase acts like deepfake circulations and the spread of misinformation. Under the refreshed IT guidelines, tech platforms are required to remove illegal, suspicious, or questionable content within two to three hours of a government or court notification.
