NCPCR summons Meta India executives again over alleged CSEAM ads

Top Meta India executives, including chief Arun Srinivas, appeared before the NCPCR for the second time in a week over alleged CSEAM-related advertisements. The child rights panel is examining claims involving Instagram and Meta's handling of child safety

New Delhi: For the second time in a week, top Meta India executives on Wednesday appeared before the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in connection with its inquiry into alleged Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM)-related advertisements on the platform.

Those who appeared before the child rights panel included Meta India chief Arun Srinivas. While coming out, he did not respond to repeated media queries about what transpired during the meeting.

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Sources, however, said Srinivas and his team reiterated before the panel the position that Meta had presented before the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on the issue of CSEAM.

The NCPCR also summoned a senior official of global tech company Capgemini separately in connection with alleged child abuse at a day-care centre run by the company in Bengaluru.

On September 9, the NCPCR had summoned the managing director and head of Meta India in connection with its probe into alleged CSEAM-related advertisements on the platform.

The child rights body took suo motu cognisance of a BBC Eye report on the alleged advertisements and sought an explanation from Meta.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has already agreed to report child safety-related matters directly to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), as the government pushes social media platforms for stronger safeguards and greater accountability amid a crackdown on child sexual abuse material and other harmful content online.

Protecting children on its platforms is a priority for the company, a Meta spokesperson had said, adding, “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 I4C,” the spokesperson had said.

The US-headquartered Meta is the first major tech intermediary to commit to establishing a direct reporting pipeline with Indian law enforcement. Until now, Meta reported child safety cases to the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Sources said online safety of children is a “fundamental principle” that is absolutely “non-negotiable” for any social media platform operating in India.

The government will take action against platforms that fail to take proactive steps to ensure children’s safety online, the sources said.

The government remains engaged with other online platforms to ensure they proactively identify and remove such content, they added.

According to the sources, while Meta’s pledge to report child sexual abuse material cases to law enforcement agencies is a first step towards making the platforms safer for children, much more needs to be done.

The BBC Eye investigation, published in early July, alleged that Instagram carried paid advertisements promoting CSEAM, some of which directed users to Telegram channels hosting sexually explicit content involving children.

The investigation also found that Meta’s recommendation systems were amplifying videos containing such material.

MeitY responded by ordering Instagram to disable the advertisements and demanded a detailed explanation within seven days.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) separately directed Delhi Police to investigate whether Meta had complied with the mandatory reporting obligations under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and issued a follow-up notice in early August seeking action-taken reports from MeitY, police and Meta.

The I4C, set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs, operates the national cybercrime reporting portal (cybercrime.gov.in), with a special focus on crimes against women and children.

The I4C separately built the Sahyog portal to route content takedown requests to social media platforms and had earlier directed intermediaries to nominate nodal officers for child sexual abuse material reporting and deploy AI tools to detect and remove such content.

Direct reporting to the I4C portal would mark a shift for Meta, which has until now routed child safety reports primarily through the NCMEC in the US, under a system that has drawn criticism in India for adding extra steps between platforms and domestic law enforcement.