Prime Minister Modi praised Australia’s social media ban for minors, which is a clear signal that India is deliberating on restrictions for social media use among minors. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, French President Emmanuel Macron and many other global leaders have appealed to protect children in the digital world.
In India, the Delhi High Court passed an order on August 23, 2013, in the writ petition filed by K.N. Govindacharya after considering the Central Government affidavit and the reply filed by tech giants. As per the High Court order, children below the age of 13 years cannot join social media. That judicial order is binding across the country as per the constitutional mandate.
Instead of complying with the judicial order, Meta, Telegram and other social media companies are pushing child sex content through paid advertising, as demonstrated in a BBC World Service report. Following these media reports, MeitY issued a notice to Meta to disable ads promoting access to CSAEM. As per the February 2026 amendment to the IT (Intermediary) Rules 2021, such unlawful content must be removed within two hours, but Meta was given one week to respond.
After the media reports, Meta initially responded that no system is perfect and its review process may not detect all policy violations. Meta-owned WhatsApp has agreed to reply to the government notice over its username feature. According to S. Krishnan, Secretary for Electronics and Information Technology, Instagram is yet to respond to the government notice on the proliferation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on its platform. He further stated that Meta’s latest AI image generator and editing model, Muse AI, will be scrutinised by MeitY to determine whether it is in accordance with the legal framework or not.
In February 2026, a junior engineer from Uttar Pradesh and his wife were sentenced to death by a special CBI Court under the IPC and POCSO Act. Meta, through its three group companies Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, commands a 1.54 billion subscriber base in India. Meta posted a blog titled “Our work to fight child exploitation on our Apps”, wherein it claimed that child exploitation is among the most horrific crimes. The company claimed that it has a zero-tolerance policy against any content or activity involving child sexual abuse. Meta further disclosed that it has removed more than 4 million accounts linked to child exploitation and taken down over 36 million pieces of content that violated its child safety policies.
A Supreme Court Bench of Justices Manoj Misra and K.V. Viswanathan in a recent judgment held that failure to report child sexual abuse invites POCSO action, and allowed the prosecution of a headmistress for not informing the police. There is ample evidence to prove the circulation of CSAM content on Meta and Telegram. As per the law of the land, the Central Government should obtain all such details and direct the Delhi Police to register E-FIRs against all such advertisers and social media accounts.
In the United States, 29 states have filed lawsuits against Meta in federal court, alleging that the company violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by harvesting children's data without parental consent. Four states—California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey—have sought a $1.4 trillion fine from Meta. This amount is close to Meta's market cap of $1.5 trillion.
For the claims made by 14 other states, hearings and trials will take place in February. According to the US Attorney General, the Facebook and Instagram platforms are designed in such a way that they can become addictive to young people. Criminal cases and fines are also underway against Meta and other tech companies in Australia and the European Union for child sexual exploitation and child pornography.
In March 2026, as per Union Minister Savitri Thakur's reply in the Rajya Sabha, the dissemination of child sexual abuse content on social media is a serious offence under POCSO, IT, and BNS laws. According to the Union Ministry of Justice, 774 fast-track courts have been set up to punish those found guilty in these cases. In 2021, the Ghaziabad police filed an FIR against Twitter (X), and the Delhi police issued a notice. In that case, then Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called for the removal of safe harbour protection for tech companies who fail to comply with the law of the land. In October 2023, a similar statement was made in Parliament by then IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Meta, Telegram and other tech companies that are promoting child sexual content for business profits through an organised criminal network are not entitled to intermediary legal protection. As per ‘One Nation One Law’, foreign tech giants must face hefty fines and criminal prosecution in India under the IT Act, BNS, and POCSO laws. In May 2017, an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) comprising the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Home Affairs, Law, IT, External Affairs, and Telecommunications was formed to protect children online. While sentencing the Banda engineer couple to death in February 2026, the CBI special court judge called the crime of child sexual abuse the rarest of rare. Bail for thousands of individual accused has been denied by the Supreme Court in cases registered under POCSO. Following the NEET paper leak, the government blocked Telegram to safeguard students' futures. Now it is time to protect children on social media so the country can fully benefit from its demographic dividend.
The author is a Supreme Court advocate
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK
