META Platforms Inc reportedly ran 332 advertisements on Instagram and Facebook containing suspected child sexual abuse material in 2026, with the ads reaching more than 29,000 users, according to a report by the non-profit Tech Transparency Project (TTP).
The ads typically used artificial intelligence to depict young children being sexually abused and were often used to promote “nudify” applications, which digitally alter images to create explicit content, TTP said.
The group said some advertisements used images of children taken from their real social media accounts.
In one case, TTP said an advertisement used a photograph of a young girl posted on Instagram in a sports uniform and digitally animated it into a video depicting a sex act.
Another advertisement allegedly showed a preteen girl removing her shirt alongside text promoting “dark” content.
“Content involving child sexual abuse is among the most serious that can be found online,” said Katie Paul, TTP’s director.
“But this content isn’t hiding in dark corners of the internet. It’s being used in paid ads on Meta platforms.”
TTP said it reported the advertisements to the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company did not tolerate nudify applications or any form of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated.
“We don’t tolerate nudify apps or any kind of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated,” he said.
Stone said many of the flagged advertisements had already been removed and that Meta continued to strengthen its systems to detect and enforce against such activity.
TTP said Meta had removed about half of the offending advertisements from its ad library as of Sept 1, while the remaining advertisements were removed after the group shared its findings with the company.
The advertisements were served to users in the European Union, Britain, the United States, India and Australia. Some reached only a handful of users, while two reached more than 2,500 people in the EU alone.
Most of the flagged advertisements had fewer than 200 impressions, while total spending on them was less than US$5,000, according to Stone.
The latest findings follow a TTP report in July that Meta had displayed thousands of sexually suggestive advertisements promoting nudify applications.
TTP said the latest advertisements contained more graphic material than those identified in its earlier investigation.
The findings come as Meta faces growing scrutiny over the alleged impact of its platforms on children and amid increasing concern over the use of artificial intelligence to create explicit images of minors. - September 9, 2026
