Instagram says it's sorry for censoring pictures of fish

Gary Dinges
gdinges@statesman.com
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[PIXABAY/PEXELS]

It's a fishy situation.

Instagram has apparently been censoring photos and video of fish after people flagged them as inappropriate. Now, the popular social media site is apologizing, according to The Daily Dot.

Rex Goldsmith with Chelsea Fishmonger in London says it happened to him twice in a span of just two weeks. Goldsmith says he uses Instagram as a "shop window" to help attract new customers to his business.  

“I totally understand censorship — but when you think that Instagram is owned by Facebook, and if you look at some of the videos on Facebook, they are disgusting — some are violent, some have foul language," Goldsmith told the BBC. "I find it a bit bizarre that they can then think a bit of cod fillet is offensive.”

Goldsmith says he suspects vegans might be reposonsible for reporting the fish photos and videos. Some vegans have made a practice of reporting images of meat as inappropriate in the past.

“I have no idea why a vegan would follow a fishmonger on social media in the first place,” Goldsmith told the Telegraph.

Instagram says it's sorry and has reinstated Goldsmith's account, according to the BBC.

"This content was marked as sensitive in error and has now been reinstated," a spokesman from Facebook, Instagram's parent company, said in a written statement.

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