---
title: "Instagram Keeps Accidentally Flagging Fish Photos as Offensive"
description: "British fishmonger Rex Goldsmith found that Instagram was censoring his photos for featuring \"offensive content\" twice in two weeks."
date: "2019-09-13"
modified: "2019-09-13"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin.md"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/instagram-censored-fish-photos-offensive"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "censorship"
  - "instagram"
  - "social media"
  - "the digest"
---

# Instagram Keeps Accidentally Flagging Fish Photos as Offensive

![British fishmonger Rex Goldsmith found that Instagram was censoring his photos for featuring "offensive content" twice in two weeks.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/instagram-censored-fish-photos-offensive.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Image via Pxhere/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## False Flag

British fishmonger Rex Goldsmith likes to post photos of his available seafood on Instagram.

"I can put a video or photo up of a particular fish," he [told *BBC News*](<https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49688308>), "and I'll often get direct messages or phone calls saying 'save one for me' — it's a good connector."

But twice in two weeks, he found his photos mistakenly censored by Instagram as featuring "offensive content" — a bizarre example of [social networks' current inability](<https://futurism.com/facebook-human-algorithm-hate-speech.md>) to effectively police their content.

## Something's Fishy

A spokesperson for Facebook, Instagram's parent company, apologized for the mistake in a statement, noting that Goldsmith's "content was marked as sensitive in error and has now been reinstated."

Still, with not one but two posts censored — and whispers of butchers facing similar censorship, according to the *BBC* — Goldsmith suspects he and his meat-slinging colleagues might be the victims of vegan trolls.

"I think it's a bit ridiculous really," he [told *The Telegraph*](<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/12/nigella-lawsons-fishmonger-claims-social-media-posts-censored/>). "I don't know whether the post has been reported by vegans or whether Instagram censored it as they thought it would be offensive to vegans. I have no idea why a vegan would follow a vegan would follow a fishmonger on social media in the first place."

**READ MORE:** [Instagram apologises after censoring London fishmonger](<https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49688308>) \[*BBC News*\]

**More on censorship:** *[Facebook Needs Humans \*and\* Algorithms to Filter Hate Speech](<https://futurism.com/facebook-human-algorithm-hate-speech.md>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)

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