Between January and June 2026, we actioned 5.3 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content on Facebook and Instagram in India, with over 98 per cent found and proactively addressed before anyone reported it, Meta said. Meta said its child-safety efforts go beyond taking action against individual accounts. | ChatGPT generated/Representative Image
Meta has introduced new AI-based tools and upgraded its ad review systems to better detect and stop child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram. The company said the measures are aimed at spotting ads that contain child sexual abuse material, as well as ads that may appear harmless but lead users to illegal or harmful content hosted outside Meta’s platforms.
Between January and June 2026, we actioned 5.3 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content on Facebook and Instagram in India, with over 98 per cent found and proactively addressed before anyone reported it, Meta said in a statement today, October 7.
The company has deployed additional measures, including new AI tools, to address the adversarial tactics we identified and improve the efficacy of our systems for identifying ads that either feature CSAM or that direct people to violating activity off-platform.
Meta steps up network-level action
Meta said it investigates suspected child sexual abuse or exploitative content whenever such material is detected on its platforms or brought to its attention. If the content is found to violate its policies, the company removes it. In cases where there are signs that predators are deliberately sharing such material, Meta said it also disables the accounts involved.
The company added that such content is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in line with applicable laws.
Meta said its child-safety efforts go beyond taking action against individual accounts. The company has been carrying out broader network disruptions for several years to identify and remove groups of accounts linked to predatory activity.
These investigations are handled by specialist teams, including former FBI investigators, who manually examine suspicious networks, identify related accounts and take action against them.
Meta said it also studies how such networks operate so that enforcement can be carried out at a wider network level rather than dealing with each account separately.
The company has now shared additional measures it has put in place to strengthen its efforts to combat child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
It has deployed additional measures, including new AI tools, to address the adversarial tactics we identified and improve the efficacy of our systems for identifying ads that either feature CSAM or that direct people to violating activity off-platform. These included:
- New Large Language Model (LLM) detection for “signposting” of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) material – seemingly benign ad content that is strongly suspected of covertly directing people to illegal content or harmful activity off our platforms.
- Improved understanding of where an ad leads, not only what it shows, so that we can block violating destinations and enforce against the accounts responsible.
- Additional AI-driven sweeps of ad content to surface CSE material that earlier systems did not catch, using signals we continue to expand as our investigation progresses.
- A red-teaming AI agent that proactively probes our own defences to find weaknesses, so we can identify new adversarial CSE tactics before they scale.
- Strengthened recidivism detection – the mechanisms for identifying bad actors who try to create new accounts after removal.
Meta actioned 33.2 million pieces globally
Between January and June 2026, Meta said it took action against 33.2 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content across Facebook and Instagram globally.
More than 97 per cent of this content was detected and addressed proactively before it was reported by users, according to the company.
