Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta will report cases of child sexual abuse and matters related to child safety directly to India’s anti-cybercrime agency, the company said on Tuesday, as social media platforms come under the heightened scrutiny of the government.
Until now, Meta’s practice was to report such cases only to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children — a US organisation which, in turn, shared the information with agencies across the world. The new arrangement would give Indian agencies faster access to information needed to pursue cases under laws such as the POCSO Act and the Information Technology Act.
A government official described Meta’s move as “a first step towards making the platforms safe for children” but added that “much more needs to be done.” The government indicated that its engagement extended beyond Meta. The government scrutiny extended to other platforms to proactively identify and remove harmful information, the official said.
A Meta spokesperson said, “Protecting children on our platforms is a priority for us and we’re committed to working with the government to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held responsible. To collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm, Meta will now report child safety matters directly to” the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C).
The official said the government has been continuously engaging with social media platforms to curb harmful information. Online safety of children is a fundamental principle for any social media platform to operate in India and it is non-negotiable, the official said.
Scrutiny on Meta’s India operations intensified after a BBC investigation published in July found that Instagram had carried paid advertisements, some using explicit search terms that redirected users to Telegram channels allegedly selling child sexual abuse material for as little as `99.
Within hours of the report, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to summon Meta executives. This was followed by a formal notice ordering Instagram to disable all advertisements and content facilitating access to child sexual exploitative and abuse material, and sought a detailed explanation within seven days.
Meta executives, led by Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, Vice-President of Public Policy Neil Potts and Asia-Pacific Policy Head Rafael Frankel, had held a series of meetings with Indian officials in August. The government has not indicated yet whether Meta faces any penalty over the July lapses.