Meta Agrees to Report Child Safety Cases to Authorities

New Delhi: Social media giant Meta on Tuesday has agreed to report child sexual abuse cases and other child safety matters to the appropriate law enforcement agencies in India. Online safety of children is a fundamental principle for any social media platform to operate in India and it is non-negotiable.

“To collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm, Meta will now report child safety matters directly to the cyber-crime portal managed by Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), according to a company spokesperson.

Until now, Facebook and Instagram owner (Meta) used to report instances of child sexual abuse material only to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a body based in the United States, which then coordinated with agencies across other countries. However, the government has been pushing social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram for stronger safeguards and greater accountability for Indian kids to protect them from sexual abuse and other harmful content online.

Meta is the first major tech intermediary to commit to establishing a direct reporting pipeline to Indian law enforcement. “Protecting children on the platforms is a priority for the company. “We are committed to working with the government to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held responsible,” the Meta spokesperson said.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, the government sources also said that Meta had agreed to report child safety-related matters to appropriate law enforcement agencies. “The online safety of children is a ‘fundamental principle’ for any social media platform operating in India and is absolutely non-negotiable. The government will take action against platforms that fail to take proactive steps to ensure children's safety online,” the sources said.

According to the sources, Meta’s commitment to report child sexual abuse material cases to law enforcement agencies is a first step towards making the platforms safer for children, and much more needs to be done. “The government is continuously engaging with social media platforms to curb harmful content, with efforts underway to ensure all platforms proactively identify and remove such material,” the sources said.

Besides child sexual abuse, the Centre has also stepped up scrutiny of social media platforms over other harmful and illegal online content, including deepfakes. It has issued notices to Meta over its handling of such content and recently summoned the company's global executives to India, as the Centre pressed platforms for faster takedown of harmful content, stronger safeguards and greater accountability - warning them that failure to comply with Indian law will not be tolerated.

In July, the government had issued a notice to Meta on Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram. The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) had ordered Instagram to disable all ads and content promoting and facilitating access to CSEAM, and demanded a detailed explanation. Multiple rounds of discussions with the Meta’s top executives followed, in which the IT ministry made it unequivocally clear that such content constitutes a violation and cannot be covered by safe-harbour protection.

Earlier this month, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) summoned the managing director and head of Meta India in connection with its inquiry into alleged CSEAM-related advertisements on the platform. The child rights body had taken suo motu cognisance of a BBC Eye media report on the alleged advertisements and sought an explanation from Meta.

BBC Eye investigation, published in early July, alleged that Instagram had carried paid advertisements promoting CSAM, 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.