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A BBC Eye investigation published this week identified approximately 30 unique advertisements on Instagram in India that directed users toward Telegram channels offering child sexual abuse material, according to the BBC report. The ads employed terms such as “rape video” and “child video” and appeared after the BBC established an alias account that followed accounts posting suggestive content. Instagram’s automated systems approved the advertisements prior to publication, even though Meta’s policies prohibit content that sexually exploits children, the investigation stated.
The alias account began receiving such promotions within days of following a small number of accounts featuring women in revealing attire using sexual innuendo, the BBC investigation reported. About 20 additional advertisements for adult pornography also surfaced during the same period. Distribution of both child sexual abuse material and adult pornography constitutes a criminal offense under Indian law, the report noted, prompting the BBC to forward all identified advertisements and linked Telegram channels to Indian authorities.
One advertisement depicted two children who appeared to be about 12 years old engaged in a sexual act while another showed a 52-year-old man with his arm around a 12-year-old girl alongside text urging viewers to click for more content, according to the BBC findings. A further advertisement portrayed a very young girl in tears with wording suggesting sexual assault. The investigation detailed how these promotions transitioned from adult-oriented material to child-related content within a short timeframe on the platform.
Instagram initially responded to a reported advertisement by stating that its review team had determined the content did not violate community standards, the BBC investigation said. Meta later informed the BBC that it had disabled several advertisements, suspended associated accounts and blocked additional violating URLs after receiving the findings. The company added that no system is perfect and that it reports apparent child exploitation cases to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in line with legal requirements, a Meta statement indicated.
NCMEC’s 2025 CyberTipline data placed India as the recipient of 1.9 million reports concerning online child sexual exploitation, second only to the two million reports recorded for the United States, according to NCMEC figures. The global CyberTipline processed 21.3 million reports that year, including 1.4 million related to online enticement of children across social media and messaging platforms, NCMEC data shows. A 2023 Stanford University study identified Instagram as a primary platform for networks advertising the sale of self-generated child sexual abuse material, with researchers tracing 405 such accounts on the service at that time.
Retired Indian Supreme Court justice Madan Lokur told the BBC he was concerned that Instagram appeared to be making money by participating in criminal activity and suggested the issue warranted suo moto cognisance by the court. Former Facebook vice-president Brian Boland, who left the company in 2020, described the algorithm as designed to present increasingly extreme content to retain users and said he was horrified but not surprised by the findings, according to the investigation. Meta’s transparency reports for late 2025 documented the company sending over 2.6 million CyberTip reports to NCMEC in a single quarter, including more than two million related to shared child sexual abuse material images and videos.
Telegram stated it had removed more than 274,000 groups and channels linked to child sexual abuse material in 2026 and maintained that it had virtually eliminated the public spread of such content through a combination of automated and human moderation, the BBC investigation reported. The Rati Foundation in Mumbai noted that the vast majority of child sexual abuse material reports it receives originate from Meta platforms, with criminals often navigating from Instagram to Telegram to evade takedowns, according to co-founder Siddharth Pillai. Bhuwan Ribhu of Just Rights for Children emphasized the need for enhanced international cooperation to track organized crime networks involved in producing and distributing the material across borders, the investigation found.
