Social media conglomerate Meta said on Tuesday that it had removed 160,000 accounts for hosting and sharing 'suspicious off-platform links in coordination with other signals indicating child exploitative activity'.
Overall, Meta, which has WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Threads under its umbrella, said it automatically removed over four million suspicious accounts from Facebook and Instagram, as well as 36 million pieces of content containing child exploitation.
'We're committed to keeping bad actors off our platforms and are constantly evolving our systems to stay ahead of them. Protecting people who use our platforms remains at the centre of how we build and enforce our advertising standards,' Meta said in a blog post.
Responding to media reports that suggested the company 'knowingly and deliberately' showed advertisements featuring children to people based on an inappropriate interest in children, Meta said it had, in fact, used technology to identify and remove 4 million such accounts last year.
The company uses automated and manual reviews to monitor and investigate advertiser behaviour, it said, and restricts such accounts that do not follow Meta's advertising standards, community standards, or other policies and terms, the company said.
'We recognise that no system is perfect and that determined criminals will continue to try to exploit our platform, including through our advertising systems. Our review process may not catch every violation, but we're continuously working to stay ahead of bad actors through our robust ad review process,' the company said.
Last week, the ministry of electronics and information technology took note of media reports which flagged that Instagram, the photo and video sharing platform of Meta, was running advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The IT ministry wrote to Instagram, asking it to explain its advertising policies, and directed senior Meta executives to personally appear to explain how such CSAM-promoting ads were allowed to remain on the platform.
-- Aashish Aryan, Business Standard
