Instagram has been accused of hiding the hashtag for "Democrats" from search results just hours after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was seen in attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration.
In the subreddit r/mildlyinfuriating, dozens of users shared comments about not being able to see #Democrats, but said that #Republicans worked just fine.
When users said they tried to search for the blue hashtag, they were met with a message from Instagram saying, "We've hidden these results" and that the hashtag had been flagged for "sensitive content."
Many of the users saying they were unable to view the hashtag said they were from countries outside the U.S., such as Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and the Netherlands.
In an attempt by Latin Times to view the same hashtags from the U.S., #Democrats was available on the mobile app, but attempts to search the hashtag on desktop were returned with "No results found." Meanwhile, #Republicans produced results both on mobile and desktop.
Meanwhile, searches for just the words "democrat" and "republicans" produce content suggestions. However, searches for "democrats" and "republican" lead to a statement from Instagram saying "No results."
"We're aware of an error affecting hashtags across the political spectrum and we are working quickly to resolve it," Meta said in a statement to the BBC.
Discussion on Reddit began in the early hours of Tuesday, just hours after Zuckerberg attended Trump's inauguration.
Meta previously came under fire after searches for LGBTQ+ content were restricted on Instagram after being labeled as "sensitive content" or "sexually suggestive content." A spokesperson for Meta told User Mag in early January that the terms were "mistakenly restricted."
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