Instagram blocked searches related to a number of political hashtags, including #democrats, #democrat, #jan6th, #republicans and a number of other terms Tuesday. Users who searched for these hashtags were instead greeted with a notice that “we’ve hidden these results” because they “may contain sensitive content.”
It’s not clear exactly how many search terms were affected but users on Reddit reported that dozens of tags were unsearchable. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone blamed an unspecified “issue” in a post on Threads and said the company was working on a fix.
The timing, just days after Mark Zuckerberg took a front-row seat at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, understandably prompted speculation that the “issue” was politically motivated. Zuckerberg recently moved to end Meta’s fact-checking programs, roll back content moderation standards that prohibited dehumanizing language and slurs targeting immigrants and LGBTQ people. The company also internally shuttered its corporate diversity programs. Stone, however, said the issue affected “a number of different hashtags on Instagram – not just those on the left.”
Indeed, there seemed to be some inconsistency in what was blocked. #Democrat, #democrats and #republicans were reportedly affected, but #republican was viewable. Users reported that #constitution, #johnoliver and #queer were also unviewable. Meta now seems to have addressed most of the hashtags in question, though the company hasn’t explained what caused the “issue.”
This, notably, isn’t the first time Instagram has inexplicably blocked searches for hashtags. Meta blocked hashtags related to LGBTQ content and labeled it as “sensitive content” for months. The company said earlier this year that was an error, noting that “we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies.” In 2020, Instagram briefly prevented users from sharing posts with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. The company said it was a mistake and blamed its spam detection features.
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