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Image via Wikimedia
UPDATE: Instagram has reversed its decision to blacklist the hashtag. Just one day after a spokesman claimed “#EDM was being used to share content that violates our guidelines around nudity,” the 11 million tagged images are back in the mix.
Instagram just blocked the hashtag #EDM, meaning that when you search for the hashtag, none of the multitudes of probably neon-hued images and videos tagged with the acronym will come up.
The timing of the ban, just about a week after the unsuccessful block of “#curvy” and a few days after two young women overdosed at California’s Hard Summer music festival (which features an EDM-centric lineup), is no coincidence—Instagram also just announced the wide release of their advertising API (meaning anyone can promote posts) today. The company has started blocking “dozens of hashtags because they were being used to share inappropriate content,” an Instagram spokesperson told HelloGiggles last week.
The action is not unprecedented—Tumblr does the same thing—but blocking a tag that is, at least nominally, a reference to music and not sex or drugs, seems like a dramatic step. Instagram has yet to officially comment on the block, though related hashtags like #edmlife, #edmlifestyle, and #edmgirls remain unaffected.
