According to a BBC Eye investigation, Instagram has been pushing child sexual abuse content in India through paid advertisements. The BBC World Service saw the advertisements, which contain phrases like “rape video” and “child video” and direct people to Telegram channels where they may purchase the content for as low as 99 rupees (about $1).
Instagram’s moderation technology must first approve advertisements before they can be published. Instagram replied to the BBC’s report of one of the advertisements by stating that the post did not go against its “community guidelines” within a day.
When the BBC later contacted Meta, the parent company of Instagram, for comment, it stated that it has already disabled a number of advertisements and suspended the accounts that were posting them. The business said it has removed additional adverts, disabled more accounts and blocked URLs for other content that breached its regulations in response to the BBC’s findings.
In 2026, Telegram reported that it has eliminated over 274,000 groups and channels that contained content of child sexual assault. The BBC put up an alias account on Instagram after we found that the platform was pushing sexually suggestive images, even when a user hadn’t looked for such stuff.
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