Warning: This story contains descriptions of abuse.
Over the past 10 months, Meta has launched hundreds of paid advertisements featuring AI-generated images of child sexual abuse, including several in India, a new report from US activists has found.
The report comes two months after the Indian government ordered Meta to remove all ads and content promoting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from Instagram. This comes after a BBC Eye investigation found that Instagram was running paid advertisements promoting CSAM in India.
Washington Technology Transparency Project (TTP), external says it found 332 CSAM advertisements running on Facebook and Instagram, most of them (274) in August of this year.
When the BBC wrote to Meta about these findings, they said in a statement: “We do not tolerate nudity apps or any other exploitation of children, whether real or artificially generated. These criminals are constantly changing tactics to avoid detection, which is why we continue to strengthen our detection and enforcement.”
A TTP report released Tuesday said it found several photographs of real children, including a member of a European royal family, that were used in advertisements and then manipulated using artificial intelligence. It said more than a dozen advertisements appeared on meta platforms even after TTP informed the company of its findings.
About a quarter (84) of the advertisements were shown in India, and 78 of them were published after the Indian government’s order to remove CSAM and its meeting with senior Meta officials.
Following the BBC investigation, several Indian agencies, including the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the National Human Rights Commission, said they were looking into the matter.
Distributing CSAM is a criminal offense in India, and Meta’s policy states that advertisements must not contain content that sexually exploits or puts children at risk.
When the BBC contacted Meta about its investigation, it said that when it became aware of apparent child exploitation, it would report it to the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in accordance with its legal obligations.
NCMEC is a centralized global reporting system for online child sexual exploitation.
But Bhuvan Ribhu, founder of Just Rights for Children, a network of more than 250 organizations working to prevent violence against children in India, says this is not enough.
Just Rights for Children filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India, citing the BBC’s findings, and asked for directions to social media platforms to compulsorily report and identify those promoting child sexual abuse material.