Shocking! Instagram blocks #blacklivesmatter posts as 'spam'
As thousands of Americans continue to protest against the killing of a black man by a police officer in broad daylight, Facebook is drawing flak for turning away from the situation. First, the Mark Zuckerberg-led social network did not remove President Trump's inflammatory post calling protesters as 'THUGS', and now, its sister app Instagram appears to be blocking #blacklivesmatter posts. Here's more about it.
#BlackLivesMatter trending on social media
In the week since Floyd's demise, social media platforms have been flooded with #blacklivesmatter posts, raising voice against racial discrimination against black people. But, the weird thing is, people who tried to share/reshare something with this hashtag on Instagram ran into an error message saying 'Action Blocked' and were not allowed to post about the pressing issue.
What does the error message say?
When a post was shared with the heavily trending hashtag, Instagram blocked it and showed a message saying "This action was blocked...We restrict certain content and actions to protect our community. Tell us if you think we made a mistake." Evidently, users were infuriated; they started calling out the social network for silencing the people trying to speak up on the issue.
Instagram blames the glitch on broken anti-spam system
As the issue surfaced, Instagram tweeted out that the problem stems from its anti-spam technology which monitors "rapidly increasing activity on Instagram to help combat spam" and is triggering incorrectly in light of an influx of #blacklivesmatter posts. "This technology is incorrectly coming into effect. We are resolving this issue as quickly as we can," the company said in the post.
We are not silencing people, the company added
In the same Twitter thread, Instagram also clarified that it is not silencing people's voices. "We want to be clear that using #blacklivesmatter is supported and celebrated on Instagram, and we are moving quickly to ensure voices using this hashtag are heard," the company said, although it hasn't yet said when the issue would be fixed and for how long it has been existing.
