Journalist Taylor Lorenz reported that the platform had restricted LGBTQIA-related hashtags for months under its so-called “sensitive content policy.”

Currently, Instagram teen accounts restrict what users can see, and the setting can only be reversed by a parent or guardian.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, is under fire for its treatment of LGBTQ+ users after journalist Taylor Lorenz revealed that the platform had restricted LGBTQ-related hashtags for months. The issue,

If you’re a teen and had any sort of hunch that certain topics were being blocked from your Instagram feed, you were probably onto something. In a new report for User Mag, Taylor Lorenz writes that Meta has apparently been restricting LGBTQ+ content from its search and discovery pages for months now.

Meta’s Instagram has been blocking LGBTQ-related hashtags for months, according to reporting by User Mag. This was done under the company’s “sensitive content” policy as an attempt to restrict “sexually suggestive content.

An error in Instagram's sensitive content filter has been restricting LGBTQ+ content from those using a number of broad search terms and hashtags. Anyone with sensitive content control turned on was limited from seeing LGBTQ+ posts and videos -- including all teenagers on the platform,

Instagram recently blocked teen users from viewing the results for numerous LGBTQ+ terms by accident, according to a spokesperson for Meta, the platform's parent company. The restrictions were reported by User Mag,