No Kings Instagram suspension during protests draws apology and calls for inquiry
Meta temporarily suspended the No Kings movement's Instagram account for several hours on Saturday during its pro-democracy protests focused on boosting early voter turnout ahead of the midterm elections, then apologized and said an automated action was taken in error.
No Kings Instagram suspension during protests draws apology and calls for inquiry
Meta says a bot-detection error darkened the account
The No Kings movement's account went dark for several hours on Saturday while demonstrations centered on increasing early voter turnout were underway. Meta apologized the same day, attributing the suspension to an automated action that triggers when accounts post, share or comment at very high frequencies.
In a longer statement, spokesperson Andy Stone said a high volume of reading profiles, posts and hashtags in intense bursts led Meta's AI tool to mistake the activity for automated bot traffic.
Unfortunately, that automated action was clearly taken in error,
Stone wrote on X that everything was now working as it should, and apologized. An automated re-review of the removal about an hour later recognized it should not have happened and restored the account, though regaining admin access took additional time, he said.
No Kings and lawmakers push back
Organizers said members had posted only a handful of times and livestreamed to thousands, and remained skeptical of the explanation. On Sunday, the No Kings Coalition said on Instagram it had regained access, but that Meta still owed it an explanation, calling voting-related restrictions in the middle of an election unacceptable.
Lawmakers joined the calls for answers:
- Senator Bernie Sanders said on X on Sunday that billionaire ownership of the media had resulted in the suspension of the No Kings account.
- Connecticut senator Chris Murphy called for an investigation, saying the incident was an indictment of Meta's outsized influence on US culture and politics.
- Murphy asked how the platform was not ready for what he called the biggest day of anti-Trump protest of the campaign, and said an investigation is warranted, at the very least.
Murphy also argued that Meta effectively functions these days as a private government, and said it was unable to protect protest against Trump while spending so much time trying to get close to him.
The protests carried on
Despite the technical blip, hundreds of planned events continued. At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, a band played for a few hundred people in caps and coats, many dancing and holding signs reading VOTE EARLY and HANDS OFF MY VOTE.
In Atlanta, city councilman Michael Julian Bond pointed the crowd to the constitution's single grant of power - the power to vote - and pressed them on whether they intended to exercise it. In downtown Los Angeles, protesters used umbrellas against sweltering heat, with a band on a rolling stage, and cheered calls for abolishing ICE and passing California's billionaire tax, the New York Times reported.
Why this march was about voting
The No Kings movement began last summer in response to broad concerns about federal layoffs, immigration enforcement and foreign wars, and its demonstrations typically lean into anti-Trump fervor.
Organizers pointed to two reasons for this year's voter-turnout emphasis:
- The supreme court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
- Fears that Trump will once again sow chaos by baselessly calling election results into question.
Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, had previously said organizers planned to recruit volunteers at Saturday's events to mobilize in case of election sabotage. The No Kings Coalition says it has regained access to its accounts, while continuing to press Meta for an explanation.
