Fino Asprilla: a meme that went off-key on Instagram

In August 2021, the Instagram account Fino Asprilla, one of the most popular meme pages in Colombia, was permanently suspended. To this day, Instagram has not explained the reasons for the decision. 

The same day the account was suspended, the page had published a meme alluding to the conviction against Daneidy Barrera, the influencer better known as 'Epa Colombia', who was prosecuted for attacking a Transmilenio station as part of the 2019 national strike protests.

The publication superimposed Barrera's face on that of a member of the Spanish terrorist group ETA. The text accompanying the image read: "Five years in prison for the EPA... not even if it were ETA Colombia".

Instagram has not allowed Fino Asprilla to make an appeal through the usual channels. Instead, the account holder has had to use a generic form where he receives no acknowledgement or response, despite multiple requests. By the time it was suspended, Fino Asprilla had reached 152,000 followers and published nearly 8,000 pieces of content, the result of years of creative work. 

It is possible that the account was suspended due to a misapplication of the policy against the promotion of terrorism, without the context of the publication being taken into account. That policy, like other Facebook policies that apply to Instagram, has an exception for satire that allows posting content that would in principle be prohibited if it expresses "mockery or criticism". 

The satire exception was adopted by Meta after it was recommended by the Oversight Board, the independent body that has the power to reverse moderation decisions and suggest changes to the company's policies and processes. The recommendation stemmed from a review of a case involving a meme that was removed from Facebook for being taken as hate speech and cruel and insensitive content, when in fact it was satire.

For Fino Asprilla, the sanction is doubly detrimental. On the one hand, as explained, there is no clarity about the sanction. On the other hand, by not responding to the appeals, even to reject them, the user is prevented from following the process established by Meta to exhaust the internal instances and thus have the possibility of going to the Oversight Board. 

To date, the original Fino Asprilla account is still suspended. Since the suspension, they post from an alternative account with almost 40,000 followers.