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This is an archive article published on June 15, 2020

#Sikh hashtag ban lifted, but community still looking for answers

The hashtags have been unblocked after three months, but Sikhs unhappy with explanation given by Instagram and Facebook.

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Instagram, facebook, sikh blocked instagram, hashtag sikh blocked, sikh blue star anniversary, indian express, tech news #Sikh hashtag ban lifted, but community still looking for answers

A week since Instagram and Facebook unblocked the hashtags ‘#Sikh’ and ‘#Sikhism’ after restricting their use for nearly three months, many in the community feel they have been left with more questions than answers.

On Friday, members of Facebook’s policy team met with a number of Sikh groups — including SALDEF (Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund), International NGO Khalsa Aid and the World Sikh Organisation — to address the issue.

SALDEF Executive Director Kiran Kaur Gill believes that while the meeting was a step in the right direction, a lot of their concerns went unaddressed. “We met with Facebook yesterday, however they did not answer our main questions. We are happy that they opened a dialogue. We just hope that it leads to actual change and that this type of action does not happen again,” she told indianexpress.com.

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The ‘accidental’ hashtag ban by Instagram and Facebook was not the only instance of Sikh content being censored in the past few weeks. Multiple Sikh content creators and media outlets claim they have been unable to access their social media profiles this month. The restrictions were not limited to Instagram and Facebook alone, with the homepages of prominent Sikh news channels KTV Global and Akaal channel being blocked on YouTube.

Backstory: Why was the hashtag ‘#Sikh’ blocked on Instagram?

Earlier this month, like other years, thousands of social media users from across the world were using #NeverForget1984 to mark the 36th anniversary of Operation Blue Star and the anti-Sikh riots. Around this time, many Instagram and Facebook users complained that when they searched for #Sikh and #Sikhism on the social media platforms, an error message popped up informing them that the hashtags had been temporarily restricted. Prominent Sikh groups and activists were quick to point out the suspicious timing of the incident.

Following the criticism, Instagram on June 3 issued an apology and announced that the hashtags had been unblocked on both social media platforms. The Facebook-owned photo sharing app revealed that the restrictions had been ‘mistakenly’ imposed over three months ago after a reported post was inaccurately reviewed by their team.

On reaching out to Instagram, indianexpress.com was told that the company did not want to comment further on the incident.

Why many felt Instagram’s apology wasn’t enough

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Soon after Instagram’s PR arm released the statement earlier this month, SALDEF had launched an online petition demanding that Facebook reveal details of their investigation.

“We realised on June 3, 2020 that the hashtag had been blocked. SALDEF feels that Facebook and Instagram could have had a better system in place that would have caught this mistake before the complete block on #Sikh was imposed,” Gill said. SALDEF urged Facebook to lay out the steps they claim to have adopted to ensure that an incident like this is not repeated.

Of the five tweets that Instagram shared about the incident last week, the company offered a mere two sentence explanation of how the block was accidentally imposed three months ago. They claim a single reported post was incorrectly reviewed by their team. But social media users were quick to question how one flagged post could lead to such widespread restrictions on Sikh-related content.

California-based blogger Rupinder Mohan Singh, who writes about Sikh-American issues on his website AmericanTurban.com, felt Instagram was not transparent about the source of the incident who reported the hashtag in the first place? “The apology is a basic action, but for it to be meaningful, we need to know what/who exactly they identified as the problem, and what steps the platforms are taking to make sure doesn’t happen again. I also wonder how attempting to censor an entire faith group can happen with such impunity,” he told indianexpress.com.

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“Online bullying, copyright infringement, misleading information and undue influence run rampant on these platforms, and often in sophisticated and automated ways. These platforms have largely stepped away from the regulating role and as such need to be regulated by a third party and held accountable for what they allow to happen on their platforms, and their performance therein,” Rupinder said.

On June 10, Sikh-run record label Immortal Productions tweeted that their Facebook page and Instagram account had been disabled without warning. The devotional music production company claimed that the restrictions — imposed right before their upcoming release — was part of a “coordinated censorship attack” aimed at silencing Sikhs.

In a letter addressed to PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, UK-based Sikh Council accused the government of silencing Sikh media and urged them to reverse the bans imposed on the Akaal Channel and KTV Global online.

Debates about censorship and regulation on social media have been gaining ground in recent times. Earlier this month, Instagram faced intense backlash after users posting about the Black Lives Matter movement complained that they were receiving ‘action blocked’ messages. The company said the sheer number of posts being shared with the hashtag had activated its automated anti-spam technology, and added that it was working towards resolving the issue.

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