NEW DELHI, July 5 -- When Meta's own review team looked at one of the Instagram advertisements a BBC investigator had just flagged, it decided the ad did not violate the platform's community standards. Twenty-four hours had passed since the report. India's government took considerably less time to disagree.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a formal notice to Meta on Saturday evening, ordering the company to immediately disable advertisements and content the ministry said promoted or facilitated access to child sexual abuse material on Instagram. The notice, described by officials familiar with it, gives Meta seven days to explain in writing how the advertisements were approved in the first place, what correct...