New Delhi: Instagram is reportedly running advertisement promoting child sexual abuse materials in India. The ad allegedly uses terms such as rape video, child video, among others, and links users to channels on the messaging app Telegram.

On Telegram, users can buy such materials for around Rs 99 rupees, a BBC investigation discovered. The report claimed that it saw the ads being published after approval by Instagram’s moderation system.

The report claimed that it saw around 30 unique adverts appeared promoting child sexual abuse, although some of these were shared by multiple accounts, and the alias account was also shown about 20 ads featuring adult pornography. The ad is allegedly causing harm to children in the real world as the social media platform provide a market place for the child abusive content.

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The distribution of both child sexual abuse material and adult pornography are criminal offences in India, while Meta’s policy states that ads must not contain adult nudity, genitals or content that sexually exploits or endangers children. The BBC has reported all of the ads and the Telegram channels to the Indian authorities.

However, it pointed out that despite the media outlet reporting one of such ads to Instagram, the social media platform just discarded it, stating it does not violate its “community guidelines.” The platform only responded after 24 hours.

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Instagram had already disabled several adverts and suspended the accounts posting those contents after the media house asked Instagram’s parent company Meta for comment. The platform said it removed additional ads, disabled more accounts and blocked URLs for other content that violated its policies in response to the BBC’s findings.

Here’s the painful article by the BBC on, @instagram running ads promoting child sexual abuse material in India. Do read this important article. https://t.co/mJEsNZOQDD https://t.co/4ayavMY91c

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) July 3, 2026