New Delhi — Meta will begin directly reporting child safety cases to India’s cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, or I4C, the U.S.-based technology company said Tuesday.
The move comes amid increased scrutiny of Meta in India over the alleged circulation and promotion of child sexual abuse material, including through advertisements on Instagram.
Government sources said protecting children online is a fundamental responsibility for every social media platform operating in India and remains non-negotiable. They described Meta’s decision as an initial step toward strengthening safeguards for children across social media platforms.
Meta said protecting children on its platforms remains a priority and that it is committed to working with the government to ensure those responsible for such crimes are held accountable.
“To collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm, Meta will now report child safety matters directly to the Cyber crime portal managed by I4C,” a Meta spokesperson said.
Authorities have said direct reporting to law enforcement would help ensure that cases involving child sexual abuse material and other forms of exploitation are not handled solely through platforms’ internal content-moderation systems.
The government has also said additional measures are needed and that discussions are continuing with other social media platforms about proactively identifying and removing harmful content. Officials have warned that action could be taken against platforms that fail to adopt adequate safeguards to protect children online.
The development comes amid broader global scrutiny of social media companies over risks to children, including sexual exploitation, harmful content and online abuse.
In India, social media platforms are governed by the Information Technology Act and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which set due-diligence obligations for online intermediaries.
Meta recently faced scrutiny following an investigation by the Tech Transparency Project, which found that Facebook and Instagram had carried paid advertisements featuring child sexual abuse material, including AI-manipulated images of real children.
The investigation also identified more than 300 advertisements featuring AI-generated child sexual abuse material on Meta’s platforms. (Source: IANS)
