The organization that monitors hate speech on social networks Sleeping Giants Brasil says it has identified the removal of LGBTQIA+ profiles from Instagram between May 16 and 17, when the International Day to Fight LGBTphobia is celebrated. Together, the five profiles mentioned have more than 1.7 million followers.
Sleeping Giants extrajudicially notified Meta, which controls Instagram, on Monday (18) and big tech reinstated part of the profiles on Tuesday (19) after contact from the reporter. In a statement, the company said it would not comment on the matter.
According to the notification from Sleeping Giants Brasil, at least five pages were blocked: Pheeno (200 thousand followers), Universo LGBTI (500 thousand followers), Ezatamentchy (500 thousand followers), GayBlogBr (200 thousand followers) and Comunidades LGBTQIA (330 thousand followers).
Content creators and influencers have also reported account restrictions. The UniversoLGBTI profile had not yet been reestablished this Wednesday.
In the document, the organization requested the reestablishment of accounts within 48 hours or the presentation of justifications. The notification cites a civil inquiry opened by the Federal Public Ministry in 2025 to investigate possible impacts of changes in Meta policies on the LGBTQIA+ population.
“Returning the pages to air does not eliminate the seriousness of what happened,” Sleeping Giants said in a statement. The entity hopes to take measures that will be adopted to prevent similar situations from recurring.
One of the profiles was Gay Blog BR. Vinícius Yamada, 44 years old and responsible for the page, states that he noticed the removal on the morning of May 16, a few hours before coverage of Shakira’s concert in Rio de Janeiro began. The account has more than 212 thousand followers and publishes content about human rights, sexuality and representation.
He says that the platform did not inform which rule had been violated. When trying to access, he says he received a facial recognition request and, two days later, an email informed him of the deactivation.
This Tuesday morning, the profile was reestablished. “Now you can use the username gayblogbr again”, said the statement from Meta, received by Yamada during an interview with Folha.
“For a long time, it was imagined that the internet would be a relatively safer space for historically marginalized communities, but sometimes the feeling is that we continue to live in alleys and areas of fragility,” he said.
The case occurs amid criticism of changes to Meta’s moderation policies, adopted in January 2025. According to the Sleeping Giants document, the changes now allow publications that associate sexual orientation and gender identity with mental disorders in certain political or religious contexts.
