Instagram blocked LGBTQ hashtags and treated them as “sexually suggestive content”.

Meta’s Instagram has been blocking LGBTQ hashtags for months, according to the report from User Mag. This was done under the company’s “sensitive content” policy as an attempt to limit “sexually suggestive content”. Blocked hashtags include things like #lesbian, #gay, #bisexualpride, #transwomen and dozens more. Those hashtags don’t seem that sexually suggestive to me but, hey, what do I know.

The terms were hidden from search and discovery for any users who had their sensitive content filter activated. Teen users have this filter enabled by default. When the teens tried to search for those terms, they were directed to a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the company’s “sensitive content” restrictions that hide “sexually explicit” posts.

User Mag’s report caused Meta to reverse course on these restrictions, after being in place for months. The company called it a simple mistake and said that “it is important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta applications, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies” .

The restrictions came after the company began hiding themes from teenagers as part of a larger “youth and wellness” privacy update.. This was announced as an effort to keep children away from content that promotes self-harm. It should be noted that heterosexual content, even things that show couples engaged in romantic activities, are not limited in any way, according to User Mag.

“A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies certain LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content,’ hiding useful and age-appropriate content from young people by default,” a GLAAD spokesperson said. LGBTQ creators have long suffered from Instagram’s content policies, often experience shadow bans and have their contents marked as “not recommended”.

While Meta says it was all a big misunderstanding, he promises to get to the bottom of things, this is just an example of the company throwing marginal communities under the bus. The company just changed their “Hate Content” policy.adding language that apparently allows people to blatantly attack gay and trans people. The company says it is now okay to publish “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when they are based on gender or sexual orientation, given the political and religious discourse on transgenderism and homosexuality.” It should be noted that the word “transgenderism” it has long been used by bad actors to deliberately falsify trans identity as an ideology.

This is part of a larger effort by Meta to become more like the the X social empire, notoriously flourishing. Right goal got rid of their fact checkersin favor of community guidelines, and removed a mention in its Hateful Conduct policy that suggested online rhetoric could “promote offline violence.”

CEO Mark Zuckerberg also welcomed Donald Trump. He’s been busy pumping money into Trump’s inauguration fund, fly to Mar-à-Lago for chats, replacing Meta policy chief Nick Clegg with a former George W. Bush aide and appointing UFC CEO (and Trump booster) Dana White on the company’s board.

Zuckerberg went so far as to explicitly indicate that many of the above changes were made because Donald Trump won the presidential election, calling it “a cultural tipping point.” He also called third-party fact-checkers “too politically biased” and suggested that many of Europe’s laws against hate speech promote censorship and make it “difficult to build anything innovative here.” Remember when he had to fight Elon Musk? Looks like Zuckerberg just lost by submission to our new First Buddy without ever getting in the ring.