Sixty seconds on . . . Instagram censorship

Is this social media combating misinformation?Not this time. This is about the photo sharing social media site Instagram deciding to block—and then subsequently unblock—the hashtag #vaginalcancer.How did this come up?On 1 July the Eve Appeal, a UK charity that funds research and raises awareness of gynaecological cancers, reported that #vaginalcancer had been hidden on Instagram.1Seems a reasonable hashtag to useExactly. The charity discovered the issue when it attempted to share the story of a woman who was treated for vaginal cancer and has talked about her experience for the benefit of others.Why was it hidden?The BMJ has contacted Meta, the company that owns Instagram, but it hasn’t responded. When the hashtag was blocked Instagram said that it didn’t meet community guidelines. This is particularly puzzling because, as the journalist Sophia Smith Galer has pointed out, the platform allows #vaginalsteaming—which has more than 150 000 posts.2Free #vaginalcancer!Quite. Athena Lamnisos, chief executive…
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