Instagram Suspends Gay Bar Over “Human Trafficking” Report
The Stud, San Francisco's oldest gay bar, says malicious reports temporarily cut it off from its primary promotional platform.
San Francisco’s oldest gay bar, the Stud, had its Instagram account temporarily suspended last week after at least one user reported its posts for allegedly promoting “human trafficking,” its owners told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Stud primarily uses its social media accounts — including Instagram, where it has more than 30,000 followers — to promote its parties, concerts, and drag events. But the bar’s co-owners say the suspension hampered its ability to promote recent events and may have resulted in lost revenue.
As the weekend approached, Honey Mahogany, a local activist and one of the bar’s co-owners, explained the suspension in a video posted to her Instagram account. The bar is owned and operated by a worker cooperative known as The Stud Collective.
“We are a promoter-driven club, and we rely on our Instagram to get the word out about our dance and drag nights,” Mahogany said. “But recently, we’ve been targeted by someone who is flagging our trans parties as engaging in human trafficking.”
Mahogany said the suspension ahead of Dore Alley — an annual, adult, sex-positive street fair held near the Stud in San Francisco’s South of Market district — could deprive the bar of revenue it relies on to stay afloat during leaner months.
“The Stud is a labor of love,” Mahogany said. “We are a collectively-owned venue where none of the owners have seen a profit. We keep the space open on a razor-thin margin, so having our only source of marketing shut down this weekend is going to be devastating to our club and puts us at risk.”
For much of the weekend, Instagram displayed an error message to users attempting to view the Stud’s official account. The account was restored by 7 p.m. Saturday, ahead of Dore Alley, a precursor to the much larger Folsom Street Fair in September, which took place as scheduled on Sunday, July 26.
Albee told the Chronicle that the post that prompted the suspension was more than a year old and promoted a trans party celebrating Dore Alley.
“Meta is from San Francisco — they know the Folsom Street Fair happens,” Albee said. “If Meta wants to protect kids from seeing sexualized images, great. … We’re supportive. But it’s time to come up with a system that is not on the backs of minority groups who people want to persecute.”
Albee said LGBTQ institutions, especially those that feature drag performers, have been targeted by online harassers who report their posts “for fun” until social media platforms or parent companies like Meta take disciplinary action.
Instagram also temporarily suspended the account of San Francisco’s Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District last week before restoring it Saturday evening, the district’s executive director, Bob Goldfarb, told the Chronicle.
According to Goldfarb, the post that prompted the district’s suspension promoted an event at the Stud and pictured two shirtless people wearing puppy masks. The photo was flagged twice and removed following false reports that it “may show sexual activity,” he said.
“Anyone who was familiar with sexual activity would not think that was possible,” Goldfarb said, criticizing Meta’s handling of bad-faith reports and the lengthy suspension appeals process. “It is completely annoying. They don’t really give you any information about what part of the post was violating their community standards, so we have no way to change things going forward.”
Instagram allows users to report posts for human trafficking or other forms of exploitation under its community guidelines. Although users can appeal suspensions resulting from algorithmic errors, it can take time for a human employee to review the case and determine whether the original report was legitimate.
But even seemingly justified appeals can be denied. Albee noted that the Stud’s initial appeal was rejected before the club’s account was ultimately restored.
“We’re world famous for drag,” Albee said of the challenges venues like the Stud face when targeted by malicious social media users. “We’re trying to stay open. So it’s a big deal for us to be just at the whims of an algorithm.”
A Meta spokesperson did not respond to Metro Weekly‘s request for comment on the flagged posts or account suspensions.
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