The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on Wednesday again summoned Meta India chief Arun Srinivas for a hearing into a formal inquiry launched by the child rights body against Meta for its alleged failure to contain child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on its platforms.
Earlier this month, the child rights body decided to conduct a formal investigation into alleged lapses in Meta India’s child safety policies and the platform’s inaction on CSAM.
The decision to initiate a formal inquiry was taken after the NCPCR expressed dissatisfaction with Mehta’s responses.
An email sent to Meta and Capgemini seeking a response did not elicit any response.
In July this year, Instagram’s video and image sharing platform Meta came under government scrutiny after reports surfaced that the platform was allowing ads promoting CSAM.
Following these reports, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology summoned Meta India executives and sought their response on the issue.
In response, Meta said it removed 160,000 accounts for posting and sharing “suspicious external links in coordination with other signals indicating child exploitation.”
Overall, Meta, which operates WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Threads, said it automatically removed more than 4 million suspicious accounts from Facebook and Instagram, as well as 36 million pieces of child exploitation content.