Meta to report child safety cases to India's I4C cybercrime portal

New Delhi: Meta will directly report child safety matters to India's Cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the US-based technology giant said on Tuesday.

The decision comes amid heightened scrutiny of Meta in India over the alleged circulation and promotion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through advertisements on Instagram.

The government has said the online safety of children is a fundamental principle for every social media platform operating in India and remains non-negotiable, according to government sources. The commitment by Meta is being seen as a first step towards strengthening safeguards for children on social media platforms, they added.

Meta -- in a statement on the ongoing issue -- said protecting children on its platforms is a priority and that it is committed to working with the government to ensure perpetrators of such crimes are held responsible.

"To collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm, Meta will now report child safety matters directly to the Cyber crime portal managed by I4C," a Meta spokesperson said.

Social media platforms can be used to circulate or facilitate access to CSAM and other forms of child exploitation.

Reporting such cases to law enforcement agencies would help ensure that such incidents are not dealt with solely through platforms' internal content-moderation systems.

The government has stressed that more needs to be done and that discussions are continuing with other social media platforms to proactively identify and remove harmful content.

It has also warned that action could be taken against platforms that fail to adopt adequate proactive measures to protect children online.

The development comes amid growing global scrutiny of social media platforms over risks to children, including exposure to sexual exploitation, harmful content and online abuse.

In India, social media platforms are governed by the Information Technology Act and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which prescribe due-diligence obligations for intermediaries.

Meta had faced scrutiny after an investigation by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) found that Facebook and Instagram carried paid advertisements featuring child sexual abuse material this year, including AI-manipulated images of real children.

The investigation also found more than 300 advertisements featuring AI-generated child sexual abuse material on Meta's platforms.

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