Delhi Police Registers FIR Against Meta India Over Child Sexual Abuse Content on Its Platforms

Delhi Police has registered an FIR against Meta India over the availability of child sexual abuse content on its platforms, National Human Rights Commission member Priyank Kanoongo said on November 5. India Today reported that Kanoongo announced the action in a post on X. Meta Platforms operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger for more than 3.56 billion daily users and earns most of its revenue from digital advertising.

Kanoongo's Announcement and Meta's Response

Kanoongo said the FIR followed the commission's directions. "Acting on our directions, Delhi Police has registered an FIR regarding the availability of Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) on platforms operated by Meta India," he said in the post.

The development comes a month after Meta announced a series of AI-driven measures to strengthen detection and removal of such content across Facebook and Instagram. Between January and June 2026, the company took action against 5.3 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content on the two platforms in India. In an October statement, Meta said more than 98 percent of the material was identified and addressed proactively, before users reported it. Globally, it acted against 33.2 million pieces during the same period, with over 97 percent detected proactively.

Meta said online predators increasingly use advertisements to evade detection, disguising them as harmless content while directing users to illegal material on external websites. The company has expanded investigations beyond individual reports to identify connected activity, disable involved accounts and block links to violating content outside its services. It has introduced large language model-based detection to flag "signposting" in advertisements and enhanced its ability to examine ad destinations rather than only the content displayed. Meta has also deployed AI-driven sweeps of advertisements and a red-teaming AI agent to test its own safeguards, and strengthened mechanisms to identify repeat offenders who create new accounts after removal. In India, Meta said it will report child safety cases directly to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal operated by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, building on its existing practice of reporting child sexual abuse material to law enforcement with assistance from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Meta's India Investments and Scale

According to akta.pro company records, Meta invested $900 million in Indian fintech CRED in June 2026 for approximately 20 percent ownership and appointed CRED founder Kunal Shah as global head of WhatsApp. The same records list 3.56 billion daily active users across Meta's family of apps and an estimated workforce of 77,986 as of 2026 before 10 percent layoffs beginning May 20, affecting approximately 8,000 workers.

Earlier Legal and Product Developments

On November 4, a Florida appellate court allowed a lawsuit by Attorney General James Uthmeier against Meta, ruling the company has not faced First Amendment limitations because no lower court order compelled action, Yahoo reported. Also on November 4, Business Insider reported that Meta internally decided to stop naming its AI models after fruit, citing branding concerns. On November 5, TechRadar reported that Meta VR Glasses, priced at $1,299, are a lightweight headset with compute and storage in a separate puck, expected to launch between April and early June.

Next Steps for Meta

Meta has said it will report child safety cases directly to India's National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, operated by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre. The company's expanded AI-driven detection and reporting measures in India follow its October announcement.