Meta has said it removed more than 1,60,000 advertiser accounts in India in recent months, as the company responds to intense scrutiny over child-exploitation advertisements on Instagram. The disclosure, made in a company blog post on July 7, 2026, follows a BBC investigation and a stern notice from the Indian government.
The action targets accounts linked to suspicious activity and policy violations. Meta acknowledged the wider concern without naming the platform directly, saying it was aware of reports about “Instagram ads in India that violated our policies against child exploitation.” The company called such content a “horrific crime” and said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy.
What Triggered the Crackdown
The response was prompted by a BBC Eye investigation, led by journalist Divya Arya and published in early July. BBC staffers created a test Instagram account in India and followed a small number of accounts posting suggestive but legal content.
Within days, the investigation found, Meta’s recommendation system escalated what it showed the account, moving from adult advertisements to promotions allegedly linked to child sexual abuse material. Some of those advertisements reportedly directed users to Telegram channels where illegal material was being sold.
The findings drew swift action from New Delhi. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued Meta a notice and sought a detailed explanation within seven days. IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw directed officials to summon Meta’s executives in person, marking the government’s second intervention against the company in a single week, after an earlier order asking WhatsApp to pause its planned usernames feature.
Here is a news report on the government’s action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuYYSLZLpgk
Meta’s Defence and the Bigger Question
In its blog post, Meta detailed the systems it uses to fight abuse: AI-led detection, human reviewers, advertiser monitoring, blocking of violating links, and intelligence-sharing across the technology industry. It also admitted the limits of that approach. “We’re in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5 billion users and try to evade our detection,” the company said, adding that “no system is perfect.”
That admission sits at the heart of the controversy. Meta reviews advertisements at enormous scale, and roughly 98% of its $164.5 billion in annual revenue comes from advertising, making its ad pipeline both hugely valuable and difficult to police. Critics argue the BBC’s findings show that automated moderation can still be exploited by determined bad actors, and that enforcement statistics alone do not prove the system is working.
For now, the episode has reopened a long-running debate about platform accountability, AI moderation, and India’s online-safety framework. What MeitY does after Meta’s executives appear, whether a formal notice, a penalty, or a documented explanation, remains to be seen.
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