On Tuesday, Instagram blocked searches related to a number of political hashtags, including #democrats, #democrat, #jan6th, #republicans and several other terms. Instead, users who searched for these hashtags received a notification that “we have hidden these results” because they “may contain sensitive content.”
It's unclear exactly how many searches were affected, but Reddit users reported that were not searchable. Meta spokesman Andy Stone blamed an unspecified “problem” fast on Threads and said the company is working on a fix.
The timing, just days after Mark Zuckerberg had a front-row seat at President Donald Trump's inauguration, understandably prompted speculation that the “issue” was politically motivated. Zuckerberg recently suggested ending Meta fact checking programsroll back content moderation standards which prohibits dehumanizing language and slurs against immigrants and LGBTQ people. The company also internally closed its corporate diversity programs. Stone, however, said the issue affected “a number of different hashtags on Instagram, not just the ones on the left.”
Indeed, there appears to have been 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 unavailable for viewing. Meta now appears to have eliminated most of the hashtags in question, although the company has not explained what caused the “issue.”
Notably, this isn't the first time Instagram has inexplicably blocked hashtag searches. Meta blocked hashtags related to LGBTQ content and marked them as “sensitive content.” within a few months. Earlier this year, the company said this was a mistake, noting that “we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive terms according to our policies.” In 2020, Instagram briefly banned users from sharing posts with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. The company said it was a mistake and blamed it. spam detection functions.