Facebook and Instagram "mistakenly" blocked the #Sikh hashtag

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Ragini Joshi
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Facebook and Instagram "mistakenly" blocked the #Sikh hashtag

Facebook and Instagram have "mistakenly" blocked the #Sikh hashtag for nearly three months.

The company says it first became aware of the block yesterday, that too after feedback from the community. Instagram unblocked the hashtag soon after, whereas Facebook took several more hours to do the same and users searching for posts tagged #Sikh were greeted with following error messages.

Facebook and Instagram have

In a statement, Facebook said the block happened on March 7, “following a report that was inaccurately reviewed by our teams.”

“We investigated this issue and found that these hashtags were mistakenly blocked on March 7th following a report that was inaccurately reviewed by our teams,” the company wrote. “We became aware that these hashtags were blocked today following feedback we received from the community, and quickly moved to unblock them. Our processes fell down here, and we’re sorry.

“We designed hashtags to allow people to come together and share with one another. It's never our intention to silence the voices of this community, we are taking the necessary steps so this doesn’t happen again.”

It's to be noted that earlier in the week, Instagram’s spam detection system caused some users to be unable to post or interact with the #blacklivesmatter hashtag.

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