Instagram flagged her ads for an event for LGBTQ women. So this Toronto organizer got creative - Toronto Star

TomHey, quick one before we move on - Instagram flagged her ads for an event for LGBTQ women. So this Toronto organizer got creative. What's your first thought?

CarolMy first thought is why "got creative" is being framed as a win when she shouldn't have needed to work around a platform blocking her own community. It turns a basic right to advertise into some kind of guerrilla marketing victory. Who exactly is missing out because those original ads were pulled?

TomYou're zeroing in on the optics, but let's look at the damage control. The people who would have shown up to that event are now stuck figuring out where it moved to after their ad vanished. That's a real gap between intent and result that "getting creative" doesn't fix for everyone.

CarolCalling it damage control misses the root cause here—Instagram didn’t pull the ads due to a typo, they actively filtered them based on the audience target. You’re treating the symptom while ignoring the algorithmic bias that decided queer women weren’t worth promoting in the first place.

TomWait, “actively filtered” assumes a deliberate decision against us, but all we know is the flag went up. That’s a big jump from a missed click to institutional hatred without seeing the backend logs. Focus on who can’t afford to wait for the workaround to spread—that’s where the real harm lives.

CarolI’m not asking for backend logs, I’m pointing out that the flag targeted the audience description itself, not the content. Whether it was malicious code or lazy moderation, the outcome is identical: queer women had to find another way to announce their own gathering. Your focus on waiting times treats the workaround as temporary, but for anyone outside her immediate network, that creativity might never reach them at all.

TomMy "missed click" thing was too light. But focusing on who never sees the message ignores the ones who actually showed up because she found a clever angle. That creative push likely reached more local eyes than a generic feed ad ever could.

CarolClaiming a clever angle beat a standard feed ad is pure speculation since we don't have any data on actual attendance numbers. That assumption erases the people who relied on paid visibility because they aren't part of the organic loop, effectively shrinking the net to only whoever knew to look twice.

TomI can't prove attendance spiked, but you're still treating every workaround as a failure rather than a tool. The real issue isn't whether her method worked better; it's that platforms like Instagram make basic community organizing feel illegal unless you speak their coded language. We should be demanding transparent appeal processes, not celebrating hacky fixes for broken systems.

CarolDemanding transparent appeals sounds reasonable until you realize most organizers don't have the time or resources to fight through layers of support tickets while their event date keeps ticking away. The burden shouldn't fall on individuals to debug corporate algorithms just to host a meeting. This isn't about fixing the system slowly; it's about ensuring no one gets silenced while they figure out what went wrong.

TomYou’re right that debugging a ticket queue is a terrible way to run an event, but that argument applies to every small business getting flagged, not just queer communities. Singling out LGBTQ organizers implies a unique hostility when the platform’s main job is filtering ads across the board. We need to stop framing general corporate laziness as a targeted attack on our identity.

CarolGeneralizing this to every small business ignores that the flag specifically keyed off the "LGBTQ women" descriptor, not just random noise. A bakery getting caught in a broad filter is bad luck; targeting your demographic explicitly suggests a pattern that needs naming, not diluting into corporate apathy. Stop treating the specific identity marker as interchangeable with generic spam.

TomCalling a keyword match a "pattern of hostility" stretches the word past its breaking point. Instagram flags millions of terms daily based on risk scores, not human malice toward specific groups. Treating an automated safety filter like a hate crime misses how these systems actually work—they are clumsy, sure, but rarely discriminatory by design.

CarolEquating a clumsy filter with intentional discrimination lets Instagram off the hook without any evidence. Just because the machine doesn’t have feelings doesn’t mean the result isn’t silencing specific queer women. You can call it accidental harm, but you can’t pretend it doesn’t land harder on us than on everyone else.

TomAccidental harm landing harder is exactly why we demand accountability, not just sympathy. We can agree the filter wasn't malicious while still insisting Instagram fix the bias before another organizer has to get creative to survive. Let's hold them responsible for the outcome, regardless of intent.

CarolHolding them to account for the outcome is the only leverage we actually have, since their internal metrics stay locked behind NDAs. But accountability means forcing a public correction, not just accepting a private apology that leaves the next Toronto organizer guessing again. We win when the flag stops keying off "queer women" entirely, not when we learn to live with it.

TomIf the goal is making the flag disappear, then we need proof that the keyword itself was the trigger, not just a guess based on where the ad landed. Until Instagram reveals which data points drove that decision, demanding a total purge of the term remains speculation rather than a verified fix. Don't ask me to trust the algorithm changed just because we complained louder; make them show the receipts before we declare victory.