Language Settings
Select Website Language

Meta Still Running AI Child Abuse Ads in India, Report Finds

1 hour ago

The Tech Transparency Project says it found 332 ads with AI-generated child abuse imagery on Facebook and Instagram, 84 of them running in India.

Meta approved and ran hundreds of paid advertisements containing artificial intelligence-generated child sexual abuse imagery over the past 10 months, with dozens of them appearing in India, according to a new report from US-based campaigners. The Washington-based Tech Transparency Project (TTP) said it counted 332 such adverts across Facebook and Instagram, with the bulk of them - 274 - surfacing in August alone.

The findings, published Tuesday, land roughly two months after India's government instructed Meta to strip all advertising and content promoting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from Instagram. That directive followed a BBC Eye investigation that exposed paid Instagram ads promoting such material to Indian users.

Of the 332 ads TTP documented, 84 - about a quarter - ran in India. Seventy-eight of those Indian ads went live after New Delhi issued its removal order and held talks with senior Meta executives, the report said. The remaining advertisements reached audiences in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Australia.

TTP said more than a dozen of the ads stayed active on Meta's platforms even after the group flagged them directly to the company. Researchers reported every advert they identified to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the global clearing house for reports of online child exploitation.

The report describes a recurring pattern in how the ads were built. Nearly all began with a genuine photograph of a child that was then altered with AI tools. TTP said it traced several of the source images to real children, among them a member of a European royal family.

Asked about the findings, Meta said it does not permit such material on its services. "We don't tolerate nudify apps or any kind of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated," the company said in a statement. "These criminals constantly shift tactics to evade detection, which is why we keep strengthening our detection and enforcement." Meta added that when it identifies apparent child exploitation, it refers the case to NCMEC to meet its legal reporting duties.

The company's own advertising rules bar any ad that sexually exploits or endangers children. In India, distributing CSAM is a criminal act.

Supreme Court petition and government scrutiny

Child protection advocates in India argue that reporting cases to a US-based body falls short of what the law demands. Bhuwan Ribhu, who founded Just Rights for Children - a coalition of more than 250 organisations working against violence targeting children in India - said platforms are sidestepping their obligations.

"Social media companies are clearly flouting Indian laws by not reporting child sexual abuse content to Indian law enforcement agencies as mandated by our child protection laws," Ribhu said.

Just Rights for Children has taken the issue to India's Supreme Court, filing a petition that draws on the BBC's earlier reporting. The group is asking the court to order social media firms to make reporting mandatory and to identify the people behind CSAM promotion.

Several government bodies have also begun looking into the matter following the BBC investigation, including the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the National Human Rights Commission.

Who compiled the findings

The Tech Transparency Project operates as a research arm of the non-profit Campaign for Accountability, which focuses on scrutinising major technology firms. Its latest count covers ads spanning five markets - the US, UK, EU, Australia and India - and the group says it has passed all 332 advertisements to NCMEC.

The report keeps pressure on Meta at a moment when Indian regulators and courts are already weighing how far the company must go to keep such content off Facebook and Instagram, and whether reporting to a foreign agency satisfies domestic legal requirements.

Meta CSAM ads, Tech Transparency Project, Instagram India, AI-generated child abuse, Just Rights for Children, NCMEC, child protection India, Facebook advertising

Click here to Read More
Previous Article
Royal Enfield GTR 750 Spied in Chennai, Launch Nears
Next Article
BYD Sealion 6 Plug-In Hybrid Spotted Testing In India

Related Technology Updates:

Are you sure? You want to delete this comment..! Remove Cancel

Comments (0)

    Leave a comment