BBC finds Instagram ads in India promoted child sexual abuse material

Paid Instagram adverts in India were steering users toward Telegram channels offering child sexual abuse material for as little as 99 rupees, about $1, after a BBC Eye investigation found the platform was serving promotions that used terms such as rape video and child video. When the BBC reported one of the ads to Instagram, the platform replied 24 hours later that the post did not violate its rules.

The BBC said it created an alias Instagram account after the app began pushing sexually suggestive content without any search activity. That account was shown women in India posting about food, weather and daily life while dressed in revealing clothing and using sexual innuendo, then within days it was being served ads that led to Telegram channels tied to child abuse material. After the findings, Meta said it had already disabled several adverts and suspended the accounts that posted them, then removed more ads, disabled more accounts and blocked URLs for other violating content.

Taken together, the findings pointed to a systems failure rather than a single moderation miss: recommendation tools surfaced sexualized content, the ad layer approved promotions that pointed users to Telegram, and the enforcement response did not stop the material from circulating in the first place. That matters far beyond one country because Instagram’s paid distribution system is designed to scale across markets, making the controls around it as important as the content rules themselves.

Telegram has tried to present itself as a harder target, saying on its safety page that it enforces a zero-tolerance CSAM policy and publishes daily takedown reports. Its moderation page says 19,294,968 groups and channels were blocked in 2026, including 288,368 CSAM-related groups and channels.

Scrutiny of the app in India intensified in June, when a 35-page Home Ministry cybercrime report used in court said Telegram was being used extensively to share child sexual abuse material and to carry out financial scams, and said authorities were proactively monitoring groups on the platform. The concern predated the Instagram investigation: in November 2023, child-rights activist Sunitha Krishnan filed a police complaint against Telegram, Paytm and PhonePe over alleged CSAM sales.