New Delhi: The Centre has directed Meta to explain how advertisements allegedly promoting child sexual abuse material appeared on Instagram, and has sought a detailed response within seven days, sources said on Sunday.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued the notice on Saturday evening, asking Instagram to immediately disable all advertisements and content that promote or facilitate access to Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM), the sources said.
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw has directed MeitY to summon Meta officials and seek an explanation on how such advertisements were allowed to run on Instagram, along with details of the safeguards in place to prevent the circulation of child sexual abuse material, PTI reported.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, will also be asked to spell out its content moderation mechanisms, advertisement review processes and the measures it has taken to detect, remove and prevent content linked to child sexual abuse on its platforms, according to sources.
The ministry is also expected to ask what additional steps Meta is taking to tighten its checks against illegal and harmful material, sources said.
Meta had not made any official comment on the matter when the report was filed.
The move comes a few days after the government put on hold the rollout of WhatsApp usernames in India.
In response, WhatsApp said the feature would remain optional and that it had put in place multiple safeguards to curb impersonation, scams and unwanted contact before a wider rollout later this year.
