A BBC Eye investigation has found that Instagram approved and displayed paid advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to users in India, raising fresh concerns over Meta’s advertising moderation systems and the platform’s role in facilitating access to illegal content.
The investigation by the BBC World Service found that the adverts used explicit phrases such as “rape video” and “child video” and directed users to channels on the messaging platform Telegram, where child sexual abuse material was allegedly sold for as little as 99 rupees (about $1).
Although Meta says every advert undergoes review before publication, the BBC reported that when it flagged one of the adverts to Instagram, the platform responded 24 hours later saying the advert did not violate its “community guidelines”.
Following questions from the BBC, Meta said it had disabled several adverts, suspended the accounts responsible, removed additional adverts and blocked URLs linked to content that violated its policies.
Telegram also said it had removed more than 274,000 groups and channels related to child sexual abuse material in 2026.
The BBC created an alias Instagram account in India after noticing that the platform had begun recommending sexually suggestive content despite the user never searching for such material.
Initially, the account followed 10 women whose posts contained sexual innuendo while discussing everyday topics such as food, weather and daily life.
Within a week, Instagram’s algorithm began displaying advertisements featuring women offering video calls alongside explicit pornography involving adults.
Days later, the account started receiving adverts depicting children alongside adults in sexually suggestive situations, with links directing users to Telegram channels.
Overall, the BBC identified around 30 unique advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material, although some appeared across multiple accounts. The account was also shown roughly 20 adverts containing adult pornography.
The distribution of both child sexual abuse material and adult pornography constitutes a criminal offence in India. Meta’s advertising policies also prohibit adult nudity, explicit sexual content and any material that sexually exploits or endangers children.
Among the adverts viewed by the BBC was one showing a boy and girl, believed to be around 12 years old, engaged in a sexual act.
Another depicted a man embracing a young girl with accompanying text stating the man was 52 years old while the girl was 12. The advert invited users to “Click to watch more” and linked directly to a Telegram channel.
In another case, the BBC reported an advert showing a young girl crying alongside wording indicating she had been sexually assaulted. However, Instagram later informed the broadcaster that “our review team found that the advertiser’s ad does not go against our community standards”.
The BBC subsequently reported all of the adverts and the associated Telegram channels to Indian authorities.
Responding to the investigation, Meta acknowledged shortcomings in its moderation process.
“No system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations,” the company said.
“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.”
Meta added that whenever it becomes aware of apparent child exploitation, it reports the material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which serves as the global reporting hub for online child sexual exploitation.
In a separate statement, Meta said: “Child exploitation is a horrific crime and Meta works aggressively to fight it on our apps.”
The company described as “categorically inaccurate” suggestions that it knowingly targeted adverts featuring children at users with an inappropriate interest in such material.
Meta also rejected claims that it prioritised revenue over user safety.
It said that in 2025 it had automatically disabled more than four million accounts showing “enough signals of potentially suspicious behavior”.
“While determined criminals try to evade detection, our expert teams are constantly working to improve our defenses, developing new technology to root out predators, blocking links to violating websites, and sharing intelligence with other companies so they can take action too,” the company added.
The BBC reported two Telegram channels selling child sexual abuse videos.
One was later removed and replaced with the message: “This group can’t be displayed because it violated Telegram’s Terms of Service.”
The second channel, however, reportedly continued posting new videos for sale.
Telegram defended its moderation efforts, saying it combines automated technology with human reviewers to remove illegal material.
The company said it had “virtually eliminated the public spread of CSAM from its platform” through these measures.
Critics, however, have accused Telegram of failing to do enough to prevent criminal content from circulating. The Dubai-based company is not a member of either the NCMEC or the Internet Watch Foundation.
Retired Indian Supreme Court Justice Madan Lokur described the BBC’s findings as deeply troubling.
He said he was concerned that Instagram was “making money by participating in a criminal activity”.
“This is a serious enough issue for the Supreme Court of India to take suo moto cognisance [when a court initiates legal proceedings without waiting for a case to be brought by someone else] and get the government to act against any social media platform,” Lokur said.
He added that although Indian law protects social media companies from liability for user-generated content, “the platform cannot, cannot shirk its responsibility”.
Former Facebook Vice-President Brian Boland said he was both “horrified and unsurprised” by the BBC’s findings.
Boland, who worked at Facebook between 2009 and 2020 and helped build its advertising business, said he eventually left because he believed “they didn’t care about users anywhere”.
According to him, Instagram’s recommendation system is engineered to maximise engagement.
He said the algorithm was designed to keep users on the platform by showing them “something more extreme, more tantalising”.
“It’s not like an algorithm that says ‘let’s make people paedophiles’, but because they’re not responsibly guiding and controlling it – and it’s just pursuing the goals of revenue and clicks – it will create these outcomes if people aren’t being truly, aggressively protective over these systems,” Boland said.
Reflecting on his time at Facebook, he recalled leading efforts to eliminate scam advertisements.
“I was allowed to, at the time, remove a massive part of the revenue of the company in the sake of user safety and user experience,” he said.
“I think what’s sad and tragic is over time, the trade-off of revenue and user experience became a more core part of the conversation.”
Boland said he deleted his Instagram account in 2025.
“If people en masse started to say, ‘I’m out, I’m done, forget it,’ the company would pay attention,” he added.
Boland also testified against Meta earlier this year during a trial in the US state of New Mexico, where the company was accused of misleading users about child safety on its platforms. A court later ordered Meta to pay $375 million (£279 million), although the company has said it intends to appeal.
Advertising continues to generate the overwhelming majority of Meta’s income.
The company reported that almost 98 per cent of its $200 billion revenue for the financial year ending 2025 came from advertising, while analysts estimate that adverts account for more than 90 per cent of Instagram’s revenue.
Unlike ordinary posts, which are generally reviewed after publication if reported, Meta says every advertisement is examined before going live.
The company relies primarily on automated systems to assess images, videos, text, audio, targeting criteria and destination links before deciding whether to approve, reject or escalate adverts for human review.
In March, Meta announced plans to reduce its reliance on third-party human moderators while expanding the use of artificial intelligence, stating that “experts will design, train, oversee, and evaluate our AI systems”.
Shikha Goel, Director of the Cyber Security Bureau in Telangana, said Meta platforms generated the highest number of reports submitted through the NCMEC Cyber Tipline.
“But that does not mean they are the largest,” she said.
“If they have a good algorithm to track child sexual abuse material, then obviously more alerts will be generated.”
According to NCMEC data, India received approximately 1.9 million reports of child sexual abuse material in 2025, second only to the United States, which recorded about two million reports.
The Mumbai-based Rati Foundation, which operates a helpline for children facing online abuse, also said most reports it receives concerning child sexual abuse material originate from Meta platforms.
Its co-founder and director, Siddharth Pillai, said: “Criminals use the seamless navigation from Instagram to Telegram to evade our moderation efforts, and keep reuploading the content we help take down.”
Bhuwan Ribhu, founder of Just Rights for Children, said organised criminal networks were responsible for much of the child sexual abuse material produced in India, although family and community members were also involved in some cases.
He said the crime remained significantly underreported and police agencies were still building the technical expertise needed to investigate such offences effectively.
To dismantle organised networks, Ribhu stressed that international cooperation was essential.
“In order to find the tentacles of organised crime, the entire chain of demand and supply needs to be tracked,” he said.
Boluwatife Enome
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