An American owned photo and video sharing service, Instagram, has apologised for incorrectly flagging posts supporting the #EndSARS protest in Nigeria as false information.
The company had faced a heated backlash from Nigerians and other international figures for allegedly not backing the movement against police brutality in the country.
This had come after some hashtags and pictures concerning the campaign against the now-disbanded special anti-robbery squad (SARS) were dubbed false by the company’s fact-checking banners.
Naomi Campbell, an English actress, had on Wednesday taken a swipe at the social media platform after it flagged a post wherein she urged President Muhammadu Buhari to address the shooting of unarmed protesters by security operatives.
“How dare you block me from posting these images and videos from showing the world the truth! People are dying and you block posts like some fake virus story!!!” she had written on Instagram.
“Instagram and Facebook, instead of protecting these people and letting the truth come out, you block it and allow trolls and hate to harm and hurt people! Shame on you!!! Free the truth!!”
But reacting on Thursday, Instagram attributed the development to a system glitch.
The company, however, said the issue has been resolved, expressing its regret for letting users down “in such a time of need.”
“Yesterday our systems were incorrectly flagging content in support of #EndSARS, and marking posts as false,” it wrote.
“We are deeply sorry for this. The issue has now been resolved, and we apologize for letting our community down in such a time of need.”
Yesterday our systems were incorrectly flagging content in support of #EndSARS, and marking posts as false. We are deeply sorry for this. The issue has now been resolved, and we apologize for letting our community down in such a time of need.
— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) October 22, 2020
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