One video of a girl on Instagram before the account takedown had over 10 million views [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Meta and Google have taken action on an account filled with short videos that appeared to depict child labour, after some of the videos racked up thousands of views online.Belonging to accounts that used variations of the “Sarita Kumari Official” and “Singer Sandip Rohi” usernames/handles, the linked accounts on Instagram and YouTube frequently shared videos of a young girl shaping clay into bricks with the help of a mould, while squatting barefoot on the ground to do so. Some of the videos used Bollywood film songs as a background score, while others featured a boy from time to time.The videos and the accounts were reported to both Meta and Google. It is not clear if the videos were created with AI tools.The Hindu learned that Meta later took down the account due to policy violations.According to YouTube, the flagged channel was terminated for violating the company’s child safety policy, which prohibits content that endangers the emotional and physical well-being of minors.Between October and December 2025, over 118,000 channels and 5.5 million videos globally were removed for violating child safety policies, per YouTube.However, one video also made its way to X (formerly Twitter), where it was presented as a news item. Viewers who saw the video of the girl there, via a Turkish media handle, speculated that she was blind, based on her gaze and how she touched her surroundings to orient herself.The video was also reported to X in order to flag child safety concerns, but remained accessible and had crossed 3 million views. Meanwhile, one video of the girl on Instagram before the account takedown had over 10 million views.Though regulators worldwide are clamping down on the use of social media apps and platforms by minors, very few enforceable laws are in place to protect children who are filmed for social media content. These short-form videos of minors often go viral, become monetised, and are frequently cross-posted across platforms — further complicating takedown efforts. Published - May 29, 2026 02:25 pm IST
