#HashtagsBlocked #WhatIsGoingOn

Tracy Le Blanc // Pexels

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, there have been an overwhelming amount of executive orders that were signed. One of which is the recent TikTok ban that was delayed until its current bid for a new company to overtake it is resolved, and because of this the app sent out a mass message that thanked Trump’s efforts. 

In light of these events, a debate of online censorship has ensued. With Instagram’s popularity as a platform where users come out with all kinds of political opinions and ideas, it has practiced democracy over the past few years. 

Despite this, users have noticed that since the TikTok ban, there has been a reduced amount of democrat-related terms, and have been accusing the application and its company, Meta, for censoring the Democratic party. One of these is #democrat, which users could not find in the search results; “results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content,” the platform stated

I think it is the beginning of fascism by the losers in power as of now- Musk, Zuckerberg, and all the other pseudo-oligarchs.” 

– C.Y., Bellevue College Running Start Student 

Although it may not completely be acts of censorship and the threat to the freedom of speech in the digital world, there is a questionable bias on Meta applications that allow Republican party terms to remain normal in the search results. 

“Is Instagram blocking “#democrat” for everyone or is this just a glitch on my end?” 

X-user @9mmballpoint

This has led to multiple users deleting both their Instagram and Facebook accounts. Other users from Reddit have also noticed that other hashtags like #queer, #prochoice, and other liberal and democratic terms were affected. 

After the supposed “glitch”, Instagram’s hashtags targeting the Democratic parties were suddenly back online when users began to report the news. Followed by this was Meta’s call to action to disband program teams such as its diversity, equity, and inclusion teams. This puts the application and its users in murky waters about the democratic practice of being protected from any form of discrimination. 

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