The Indian government has warned of action against two of them. meta It rolled out three major platforms, WhatsApp and Instagram, within a week, underscoring the growing regulatory risks the U.S. social media giant faces in its major markets.
On Saturday, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a “stern notice to Mehta for including child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM)” in paid ads on Instagram, according to a report on Indian state broadcaster DD News.
The government told Instagram to “immediately disable all ads and content that promote” child abuse and asked Meta to provide a detailed explanation within seven days, the report said.
The regulator’s warning to Mehta comes after a BBC investigation on Friday revealed that Instagram had been running paid ads promoting child sexual abuse content in India.
A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in an email that Meta has a “zero tolerance policy” against child abuse-related content. “While we use AI technology to proactively detect violating content and individuals, we are in a constant battle with criminals who seek to hide from our 3.5 billion users and evade detection,” the company added.
Earlier this year, the European Commission found that social media giants were in breach of EU law by failing to prevent children under 13 from accessing their platforms. Meta did not agree with the preliminary findings, but if the findings are confirmed, it could be fined up to 6% of its annual global sales.
While U.S. companies face no immediate risk of fines in India, they face intense regulatory scrutiny in their largest market. The country has Instagram’s largest audience base, with more than 480 million users, more than double the number of users in the United States as of 2025, according to Statista data. Additionally, Facebook has over 400 million users, making it the world’s largest user base.
Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research, said this was a “wake-up call for Meta to tighten compliance and control over its platforms” as the Indian government is keen to “tighten the leash on these large digital platforms.”
Meta’s messaging app WhatsApp, which has more than 500,000 users in India, also received a warning last week about rolling out a username feature. The government claimed that the feature could lead to an increase in cybercrime incidents and instructed platforms to suspend the plan.
Meta defended the introduction of usernames, saying it was a “key privacy feature” designed to help people stay connected without revealing their phone numbers.
“India is less of a hostile market and more of a highly regulated market,” Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC. He added that given India’s importance as a major digital market, businesses should expect regulators to be more proactive in addressing “issues ranging from online safety to data governance.”
