The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has decided to institute a formal inquiry into alleged lapses in Meta India’s policies on child safety and the platform’s lack of action on child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to sources.
The decision to institute a formal inquiry was taken after NCPCR found Meta’s response on the issue inadequate. The company’s India head, Arun Srinivas, has also been summoned by the child rights body on Thursday.
An email sent to Meta seeking its response did not elicit a response until the time of going to press.
In July this year, Meta’s video- and image-sharing platform Instagram came under the government’s scrutiny after reports emerged that the platform was allowing advertisements promoting CSAM.
Following the reports, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology summoned Meta India executives and sought their response on the issue.
In response, Meta said it had removed 160,000 accounts for hosting and sharing “suspicious off-platform links in coordination with other signals indicating child exploitative activity”.
Overall, Meta, which has WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads under its umbrella, said it had automatically removed more than 4 million suspicious accounts from Facebook and Instagram, in addition to 36 million pieces of content containing child exploitation.
Earlier this year, Instagram updated its policies around content shown to children and said all users below the age of 18 would be able to view only content similar to what they would likely see in an age-appropriate movie.
All users under 18 will be placed in this category going forward, and they will not be able to change the settings without a parent’s permission, Meta had said in a blog post announcing the changes.
“Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a movie rated for ages 13+, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram, but we’re going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible. We recognise no system is perfect, and we’re committed to improving over time,” Meta had said.
————————————————
