Meta and Google Terminate Viral Social Media Accounts Depicting Child Labour

Tech giants Meta and Google have deactivated viral online accounts featuring a young girl engaged in forced manual brickmaking after the videos accumulated millions of cross-platform views.

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW DELHI, May 29, 2026 : Major social media conglomerates are facing renewed scrutiny regarding child protection oversight following the forced takedown of heavily viewed video channels. Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube intervened to terminate multiple linked profiles operating under variations of the handles “Sarita Kumari Official” and “Singer Sandip Rohi” due to severe policy violations.

The digital media clips featured a young girl working barefoot on the ground, using a manual mould to shape wet clay into construction bricks. Several videos incorporated upbeat Bollywood film soundtracks as background audio, while others occasionally depicted a young boy participating in the same labor.

The content quickly went viral across multiple ecosystems, with one specific Instagram video accumulating more than 10 million views before Meta administrators enacted a permanent account ban.

Concurrently, a separate channel on YouTube was terminated for directly violating the platform’s strict child safety mandates, which prohibit any content that endangers the physical or emotional well-being of minors. Corporate transparency data highlights the scale of the ongoing moderation crisis, showing that YouTube removed over 5.5 million individual videos and dismantled 118,000 channels globally for minor exploitation over a single three-month period.

Despite the enforcement actions by Meta and Google, identical copies of the footage migrated to X, formerly known as Twitter. Re-shared by an international media handle where it amassed over three million views, the clip sparked intense public speculation from viewers who suggested the child might be blind due to how she touched her surroundings for navigation.

Digital safety experts warn that while international regulators are actively limiting how minors consume social media, severe legislative gaps remain regarding children who are filmed for commercialized, cross-posted online content.

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