Meta Mistakenly Suspended the No Kings Coalition's Instagram Account for About 90 Minutes on Saturday; Sanders Speaks Out on Sunday as Murphy Calls for a Probe
Washington — During Saturday's nationwide "No Kings: Vote Early" action day, the organising No Kings Coalition's Instagram account was unavailable for about 90 minutes, according to Livemint, citing Bloomberg and other reports. The coalition said organisers remained locked out of the account even after it became publicly visible again, and that full access was restored at 5:33 p.m. New York time on Saturday. The coalition said millions of people participated in nearly 3,000 events across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., that day, and that Instagram was a crucial platform for communicating with supporters.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on Saturday that unusually high rates of posting, sharing and commenting had triggered the company's automated systems and caused the suspension, and he called the action "clearly" an error. On Sunday, Stone added that Instagram's engineering team had found that a tool from Anthropic's Claude had been accessing profiles, posts and hashtags at roughly four times the normal rate in intense bursts, resembling automated bot traffic; an automated review about an hour later determined the account should not have been removed and restored it, though returning administrative access took longer, and Stone reiterated the company's apology. Organisers remained sceptical of Meta's explanation; according to The Guardian, they said members had posted only a handful of times and livestreamed to thousands.
Senator Bernie Sanders expressed concerns on X on Sunday about billionaire ownership of the media in connection with the suspension. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy also called for an investigation, saying the incident was an indictment of Meta's "outsized influence" on US culture and politics. The No Kings Coalition said it plans a national organising call on Wednesday focused on turnout ahead of Election Day. (GSM, based on Livemint citing Bloomberg)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片 Image: 智能手机上的Instagram应用资料图 The Instagram app on a smartphone (file photo), Santeri Viinamäki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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