Tech giant Meta said that it has taken fresh enforcement action after recent reports that found Instagram carrying advertisements in India that violated the company’s child exploitation policies.
In its blog post released on Tuesday, it said that it has removed the ads, disabled the accounts behind them, and block associated URLs. The response comes as The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had, on Saturday, issued a formal notice to Meta over allegations that paid advertisements on Instagram promoted Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM).
The company added that before the cases were even brought to its attention, its enforcement systems had already identified and disabled several of the violating ads and the accounts responsible for them, and that its own investigation into the reports led to further action, including additional ad removals, account bans, and the blocking of linked URLs.
Meta pushed back firmly on the idea that it knowingly targets child-related ads to users who show an interest in children, calling that suggestion inaccurate.
The company said its systems are instead built to flag accounts exhibiting suspicious behavior around children, and that this technology remains active on an ongoing basis rather than only in response to individual reports.
“We use automated and manual reviews to enforce our policies. Beyond reviewing individual ads, we also monitor and investigate advertiser behavior, and may restrict advertiser accounts that don’t follow our Advertising Standards, Community Standards or other Meta policies and terms,” Meta said.
Over the past six months, the company said its AI tools for detecting suspicious off-platform links tied to child-exploitative activity led to the removal of 1,60,000 accounts in India. Globally it removed more than 4 million suspicious accounts last year and took down 36 million pieces of child-exploitation content from Facebook and Instagram. Between October and December 2025 alone, Meta said it removed 13 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content, with more than 96% of that was found and addressed proactively before any user had reported it.
The US based social media platform added that it reports suspected child exploitation to law enforcement through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and that in India such cases are also passed to the government’s cyber-crime portal under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2021.
The company said it expects to keep investing in enforcement technology and strengthening its ad review processes as it continues working with law enforcement to address violations going forward.