Unequal: Instagram suspends media account by mistake

On the night of February 26, Alejandro Villanueva, director of the investigative journalism portal Desigual, received a notification from Instagram that the media outlet's account had been suspended. 

The message did not specifically say what had triggered the sanction, but implied that the account, which had more than 16,000 followers, was being used for an impersonation: "We do not allow people on Instagram to impersonate or speak on behalf of a business without permission."

Meta's authenticity policy prohibits impersonating another person or entity, using its name or image in order to mislead users. One hypothesis that was initially considered was that the medium had been confused with the Spanish clothing brand Desigual, with which it shares a name. However, the context of the publications was enough to understand that it was not the same business and that there was no intention to mislead the audience. Moreover, the account had been active and problem-free on that platform for four years.  

Villanueva appealed the decision, but within minutes a message indicated that the account still did not meet Meta's community standards and would be permanently banned. 

"They silenced us. They knocked down our Instagram account," said Villanueva and Nicolás León, general editor of Desigual, in a video they shared to explain and criticize the situation. "They eliminated four years of research, opinion, analysis and denunciations. It was not only the loss of a profile in a social network, it was the disappearance of a living archive," they argued in the piece. 

The video was posted on a new account they created on Instagram to start from scratch. However, within hours it was also suspended, as Meta prohibits creating new accounts belonging to a person or entity that has been banned. 

The situation provoked the solidarity of journalists and public figures, such as former minister Alejandro Gaviria and ambassador and former senator Roy Barreras. The theory that the suspension had been caused by coordinated attacks in retaliation for his journalistic investigations led to the case being reported to the Foundation for Press Freedom. 

As a civil society organization, Green Lantern reports on some platforms that affect the public interest. After a request to Meta to review the measure, Desigual's account was reinstated. In its response, the platform indicated that the sanction had been applied in error.