Meta said it removed over 1.6 lakh advertiser accounts in India after Instagram ad scrutiny

New Delhi: Meta said it has removed over 1,60,000 advertiser accounts in India over the past year, days after a BBC World Service report alleged that an Instagram account was "pushed" content advertising child and adult sexual abuse material, and following a strong response from the Indian government demanding action against such content.

In a blog post on Tuesday, July 7, Meta said it had also removed 36 million pieces of content globally last year that was exploitative of children, along with four million accounts worldwide. Without naming the platform directly, the company acknowledged it had been made aware of concerns about "Instagram ads in India that violated our policies against child exploitation."

"And we want to be clear: we take these concerns seriously, we never want this content on our platforms, and we're committed to improving our efforts to combat it," the company said, adding, "We're in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5 billion users and try to evade our detection."

Meta said the 1,60,000 accounts removed in India were identified through AI tools, with human reviewers also involved in assessing content against its policies. Experts on cybercrime cited by BBC in its report said Meta's platform draws a high volume of complaints partly because of the scale of its operations in India.

A CNBC report in May, citing Meta's April earnings, said nearly 98 per cent of the company's $56.3 billion first-quarter revenue came from advertising.

BBC's report