Meta Reportedly Allowed Ads Promoting Child Abuse. Now India Is Threatening Action Against The Company.

India has threatened legal action against Meta after a report found that the company allowed the running of ads promoting child sexual abuse.

The BBC reported last week that it had discovered advertisements featuring naked women, couples having sex, and children with adults in sexually suggestive situations. The videos had names like “r–e video” or “child video.” Overall, the BBC investigation found at least 30 advertisements promoting child sexual abuse appearing on the Meta-owned platform Instagram.

That report has now spurred the Indian government to threaten action against Instagram and WhatsApp.

Indian state broadcaster DD News reported that the government had “issued a stern notice to Meta over the presence of Child Sexual Exploitative & Abuse Material (CSEAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram.”

The network noted that the government ordered Instagram to “immediately disable all advertisements and content that promote or facilitate access to CSEAM.” The government also is asking for a detailed explanation of how the content was allowed to appear.

Meta has seven days to respond to the notice, issued on July 4.

After the BBC contacted Meta with it’s findings, the company told the network that “no system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations.”

“We continue to run proactive detection technology on ads once they’re live, and anyone can report an ad to us that they think breaks our rules,” the company stated to the BBC.

CNBC reported that the European Commission found that Meta had failed to prevent children younger than 13 from accessing its platforms, violating EU law. The company could face substantial fines in that case.

The network reported that Meta does not yet face fines related to the matter in India. However, India is its biggest market and regulatory issues could create challenges for the company. CNBC reported that Instagram has more than 480 million users in India and that Facebook has more than 400 million users.

Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC that the BBC report was a “wake-up call for Meta to tighten its compliance and control for its platforms.”

Shah added that India was likely “to tighten the leash over these massive digital platforms.”