The Centre has issued a stern notice to Meta over the alleged presence of Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram and sought a detailed explanation from the technology company within seven days, sources said on Sunday.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued the notice on Saturday evening, directing Instagram to immediately disable all advertisements and content promoting or facilitating access to CSEAM, the sources said.
According to sources, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw has directed MeitY to summon Meta officials to explain how such advertisements were allowed to run on Instagram and the safeguards in place to prevent the circulation of child sexual abuse material.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is expected to explain its content moderation mechanisms, advertisement review processes and the measures it has taken to detect, remove and prevent content related to child sexual abuse on its platforms.
The ministry is also likely to seek details of the steps being taken by the company to strengthen enforcement against illegal and harmful content, the sources added.
Meta had not issued an official statement on the matter till the filing of this report.
The development comes days after the government halted the rollout of WhatsApp usernames in India.
Responding to the move, the messaging platform said the upcoming username feature would be optional and that multiple safeguards had been built in to prevent impersonation, scams and unwanted contact ahead of its wider rollout later this year.
(With inputs from PTI)