Instagram has blocked searches for a number of political hashtags, including #democrats, #democrat, #jan6th, #republicans and others. Users who tried to search for these hashtags saw a message saying «we have hidden these results because they may contain sensitive content», Engadget reports.
“Technical glitch” or political motives?
Meta says the problem is due to «technical glitch». Company spokesman Andy Stone noted in a post on Threads that the issue affected not only political hashtags but also other hashtags, and the company is working to resolve it.
The incident has sparked speculation of political motives due to the timing — the day after Donald Trump's inauguration. The context is also compounded by Meta's recent decisions to end fact-checking programs and relax content moderation standards.
The fact that the hashtags #Democrat and #republicans were blocked, while #republican remained available, adds to the severity of the situation. Users have also reported that tags like #constitution, #johnoliver, and #queer are unavailable.
This is not the first time Meta has blocked hashtags due to «errors». In 2020, the hashtag #blacklivesmatter was temporarily blocked, and previously, hashtags related to LGBTQ+ were marked as «sensitive content».
At the time of publication, most of the hashtags are now available, but Meta has not yet provided a detailed explanation for the situation.