India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a notice to Meta on June 7, 2025, concerning the presence of Child Sexual Exploitative & Abuse Material (CSEAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram. The Indian government directed Instagram to immediately disable all advertisements and content that promote child abuse.

The government sought a detailed explanation from Meta within seven days regarding the advertisements. This action followed a BBC Eye investigation published on June 6, 2025, which revealed that Instagram was running paid advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material in India.

The BBC investigation found advertisements using terms such as "rape video" and "child video." These advertisements linked users to Telegram channels that offered to sell material for as little as 99 rupees. In response to the BBC's findings, Meta stated that it had disabled several advertisements, suspended accounts responsible for posting them, removed additional ads, and blocked URLs for other content.

Meta indicated that its systems are not without flaws. A company representative said, "no system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations." As of 2025, India has more than 480 million Instagram users, according to data from Statista. The country also has over 400 million Facebook users and more than half a million WhatsApp users, making it the largest global user base for Facebook.

The European Commission previously found that Meta was violating EU law by failing to prevent children under 13 from accessing its platforms. If these findings are confirmed, Meta could face fines amounting to up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover. Meta reported that advertising accounted for almost 98% of its $200 billion revenue for the financial year ending 2025.