Meta Reaffirms Zero Tolerance for Child Abuse Content

The spokesperson added that Meta's expert teams are continually improving the company's defences, developing new technologies to identify predators, blocking links to websites hosting abusive content, and sharing intelligence with other technology companies to help them take action.

The statement comes after reports that Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to summon Meta officials over advertisements allegedly promoting child sexual abuse that appeared on Instagram.

According to sources, the ministry is expected to seek an explanation from the US-based technology company on how such advertisements appeared on Instagram and what safeguards are in place to prevent the circulation of such content.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is also likely to be asked to explain its advertisement review processes, content moderation systems and the measures it has adopted to detect, remove and prevent child sexual abuse-related content on its platforms.

The ministry is expected to seek details on the company's enforcement mechanisms and the steps being taken to further strengthen protections against illegal and harmful content, sources had said.

The development comes days after the government asked WhatsApp to defer the rollout of its username feature in India pending consultations. In response, the messaging platform clarified that usernames will be optional and said multiple safeguards have been built into the feature to prevent impersonation, scams and unwanted contact before its wider rollout later this year.