Up until October 3, the Los Angeles-based lingerie brand Cantiq maintained a thriving community of over 100,000 followers on Instagram. For designer and owner Chelsea Hughes, the platform served as the foundational pillar of the business, functioning as its primary source of traffic and revenue. As a label dedicated to gender- and size-inclusive undergarments, digital visibility is essential to its daily operations and long-term survival.
However, in a sudden and unexpected move, Meta—Instagram’s parent company—banned the business account entirely, alongside the suspension of Hughes’ personal Facebook profile. Although the account was ultimately restored on October 9, the intervening days brought intense personal stress, professional disruption, and public scrutiny sparked by media inquiries.
"I can’t even get into the Meta Business Manager app," Hughes said while the account was deactivated. "I can’t access anything. So ten years of work down the drain."
Hughes quickly concluded that the enforcement was the result of automated discrimination driven by artificial intelligence. Earlier in the year, Meta announced plans to scale up its enforcement of community standards using advanced AI models. In Hughes’ view, these automated systems struggle to process differences in body sizes accurately, misinterpreting larger bodies as inherently more explicit or sexual simply due to increased surface area.
"If you are a 3X and you’re wearing the same bra as another person in an extra small, that AI will scan and say that that 3X person is showing more skin just because they have a larger body," Hughes explained. "It is not about them being more sexual. It is not about them selling sex or anything like that. It’s just based on the fact that there are more square inches on their skin than on a smaller size, and that’s just not fair."
Cantiq is far from an isolated case. Over recent months, numerous queer-focused establishments, including gay bars and nightclubs across Los Angeles and Austin, have reported sudden removals of their business profiles by Meta.
Thick Enterprises, an organization that platforms, showcases, and trains dancers in larger bodies, also faced a sudden Instagram account removal. The profile was reinstated around the same time Cantiq’s account returned. While the page was disabled, Chantal, the co-owner and experiential director, described the wave of bans as a targeted push against marginalized communities.
"The fact that it has happened in these last two months, you’re like, oh yeah, this is definitely queer erasure. This is fatphobia. This is taking marginalized groups and labeling them as sexual deviants, and that’s incredibly dangerous," Chantal stated.
When contacted regarding the wave of suspensions, Meta maintained that it enforces its policies uniformly, regardless of the account holder or the nature of the content posted. The company pointed toward its established policies concerning sexual solicitation and sexually explicit language as the criteria governing enforcement. Both Hughes and Chantal maintained that they consistently monitor their content to ensure compliance with Meta’s guidelines.
"It has felt like 1984"
The recent wave of business account removals echoes longstanding grievances raised by LGBTQ+ accounts, sex workers, sex educators, and reproductive rights activists. For years, creators within these communities have reported being penalized or subjected to shadowbanning—where content is suppressed from search and explore pages—despite operating strictly within published community guidelines. Instagram has historically denied the existence of shadowbanning.
Now, those enforcement patterns appear to have expanded to commercial enterprises serving LGBTQ+ and plus-sized audiences.
Nonprofit organization Repro Uncensored tracks digital censorship instances globally. Executive Director Martha Dimitratou noted that reports of sudden bans have arrived at a near-constant rate. Between March and October, the organization logged approximately 905 global cases of digital censorship, including 135 within the United States. In August and September alone, the group received 275 worldwide reports, with 60 originating domestically. Dimitratou suggested that supporting progressive and marginalized accounts frequently falls outside the priorities of major technology corporations, particularly amid shifting political climates.
Advocacy groups have criticized Meta for placing the burden of correction on public pressure rather than systemic fixes. A spokesperson for GLAAD noted that the company is fully aware of the ongoing issues regarding AI models misinterpreting LGBTQ+ language and resources, yet typically reverses suspensions only after public outcry draws attention to the errors.
This dynamic played out clearly for Precinct, a prominent Los Angeles bar. The venue’s Instagram account was restored only after general manager Jeremy Lucido and other organizers rallied patrons to contact Meta directly.
"We have been targeted, and we’ve been left with very few real resources or ways to get help," Lucido said. He noted that platforms like Meta have engineered an ecosystem where independent businesses heavily depend on social media to maintain their customer base, only to be locked out of essential communication channels without recourse. "Meta’s users, creators, and advertisers are entitled to have the company’s products function safely and fairly. They deserve an explanation and implementation of an actual solution. Meta must fix this problem, now."
For Cantiq, the lead-up to the ban involved automated scrutiny of the brand’s profile text. Hughes noted that several words in the bio—specifically "queer," "body positive," and the brand’s extensive size range from 6X to XS—had been flagged by automated systems. After requesting a review, the account disappeared entirely. Because automated login errors prevented her from filing a standard appeal, Hughes relied on her personal network, reported the incident to Repro Uncensored, and purchased the highest level of verification for her personal profile in an attempt to reach human support channels.
Similarly, Chantal woke up to find the @thickenterprises account disabled on Instagram, despite having no active warnings or restrictions the night before. Meta’s automated notice pointed to a promotional poster for a show published nearly two weeks prior, citing violations related to soliciting sex and nudity. Chantal emphasized that no models were nude and that the organization’s recent name change from Thick Strip to Thick Enterprises was specifically intended to ensure compliance with platform rules. The accounts of several dancers associated with the organization were also swept up in the removal.
"It’s our belief that the AI moderation system is reading these larger bodies as being nude because we have more skin," Chantal said. "This algorithmic bias is baked into this coding, and we believe it because our peers who are smaller in this industry don’t seem to be facing this disproportional enforcement of these community guidelines."
Chantal added that the constant scrutiny has distorted her relationship with her own online presence, noting that ordinary posts documenting daily life or business operations are frequently mischaracterized by algorithms. "I have felt surveilled," she said. "It has felt very 1984."
The impact of Meta’s content moderation
The growing friction around automated moderation coincides with growing institutional scrutiny. On October 1, Meta’s independent Oversight Board announced new research aimed at establishing guidelines for utilizing large language models in content enforcement while preserving free expression and human rights standards. While the board initially acknowledged the utility of AI in managing vast volumes of content, it has repeatedly warned of inherent risks, including systemic bias, hallucinations, and difficulties in interpreting complex human communication such as humor, sarcasm, and cultural nuance.
For small business owners, these technological shortcomings carry immediate financial consequences. Prior to the restoration of Cantiq’s account, Hughes expressed concern that the sudden loss of revenue could threaten the viability of the brand, putting five employees’ livelihoods at risk in a difficult economic environment.
Similarly, Lucido emphasized that automated processes leave businesses stranded without human avenues for appeal, resulting in missed promotions and disrupted community engagement. "An apology after the fact doesn’t undo that," he noted.
Critics have also pointed to perceived double standards in enforcement across different tiers of account holders. While smaller independent creators and marginalized brands face strict automated penalties, major commercial labels frequently avoid similar disruptions under comparable circumstances.
Despite the systemic challenges, business owners like Chantal continue to navigate the complexities of digital survival. While the string of automated deletions initially fostered a sense of isolation and self-doubt, realizing the broad scope of affected accounts has reframed the issue.
"We’re all just victims," Chantal said.
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