Anthem Orlando is back on Instagram. The LGBTQ+ nightclub announced Oct. 27 that its original account had been restored, a week after its suspension.
“Our original Instagram has been restored, and this is home again,” the club wrote in its restoration announcement. Anthem said it will keep @anthem.orlando as a backup account.
Co-owner Mike Vacirca said Instagram suspended @anthemorlando on Oct. 20, two days after Orlando Pride weekend. In an appeal posted on Threads, he said the notice cited Community Standards without identifying a post or policy. The club appealed that day.
Vacirca also raised concerns about other LGBTQ+ venues losing their accounts. Anthem’s return resolves its immediate outage, but the wider problem remains: several queer venues have reported suspensions ahead of major events.
View on Threads
Anthem Orlando’s original statement about the suspension. The account has since been restored.
Gay Bars in San Francisco and Los Angeles Lost Accounts Before Big Weekends
The Stud, a co-op bar on Folsom Street that’s often called San Francisco’s oldest gay bar, lost its Instagram on July 25, the day before Dore Alley, a street fair the bar counts on every year. Co-owner Rachel Ryan said someone had reported months-old party posts for “human trafficking.” After co-owner Honey Mahogany posted a video and state Sen. Scott Wiener called on Meta to reverse the ban, the company restored the page on July 25, Mission Local reported. Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold said only, “The account has been restored.” He didn’t say why it was taken down.
The Stud was one of at least six LGBTQ+ bars and groups in San Francisco to have Meta accounts flagged, suspended or deleted in the past year, Mission Local found in September. The San Francisco Eagle lost an Instagram account with nearly 20,000 followers the Friday before Pride weekend, and its appeal was denied. Owner Lex Montiel started over with a new account. “They should be letting us know if we need to make adjustments, rather than just cancel the account,” he said. The leather bar Powerhouse lost its account in August and got it back within about a day.
In Los Angeles, a lot of the clubs that went dark cater to queer Latino and Black crowds. Club Cobra in North Hollywood lost its Instagram page on New Year’s Day, the Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 22. By June 1, owner Marty Sokol said, every Instagram page tied to his clubs had been suspended, along with about a dozen belonging to staff and promoters. “Without a seat at Meta’s table, we will all be closed,” Sokol told the paper.
Catch One, the Mid-City venue that opened as Los Angeles’ first nightclub for Black lesbians, lost its Facebook page and its ad access in May. Owner Mitch Edelson estimated ticket sales fell as much as 80% without Meta posts and ads. The page came back Sept. 10, after Assemblymember Mark González contacted Meta on the club’s behalf. Club Cobra’s pages returned only after the Times asked Meta about the suspensions.
Trans promoter Audry Cobra, who hosts the trans-focused night Transfix at Club Cobra, said her two professional pages were suspended a year earlier. “It feels very targeted,” she told the Times.
Austin, Sydney, Melbourne and Amsterdam Venues Report the Same Problem
In Austin, Meta flagged posts from Oilcan Harry’s and Rain on 4th, and took Rain on 4th’s Instagram account down this summer without explanation, Futurism reported, citing interviews the bar’s president gave the Houston Chronicle. Some of the flagged images showed drag performers. “You feel helpless, you feel like you are stuck in an unfair system that you do not know how to get out of,” Rain on 4th president Scott Neal said.
In Australia, Palms on Oxford and Tribe @ 231 in Sydney lost Facebook and Instagram within an hour of each other in July, and Melbourne venues The Laird, The 86 and UBQ reported similar takedowns, according to Express. The reasons venues said Meta gave ranged from “breach of community standards” to “human exploitation.” “There doesn’t seem to be any human person in control of this,” said Michael Lewis, chief executive of Palms and Tribe.
Berlin’s KitKatClub lost its Instagram account in March and got it back after contacting Meta directly, Resident Advisor reported. In Amsterdam, accounts for Club Church and Sauna Nieuwezijds were removed this spring. Repro Uncensored counted more than 130 reports of removed accounts around the world in April, mostly from the EU, according to Erasmus University Rotterdam.
What We Know About Meta’s Moderation of Queer Nightlife
Meta has not publicly explained why it suspended Anthem’s account. It has been moving more moderation to AI, though. In March it rolled out new software for flagging content, and some of the people it laid off around then did moderation work, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times also cited Meta spokesman Daniel Roberts telling The New York Times that AI was reducing enforcement errors.
Owners say there’s nobody on the other end. Sokol told the Los Angeles Times that the AI-driven appeal process asked him to upload a passport, a driver’s license and a facial scan. Mandy Salley, chief operating officer of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, told Mission Local that much of the moderation runs on automated tools scanning for keywords, phrases and images.
Some of it looks like trolls using the report button. The Stud’s owners said its takedown came from false trafficking reports, and Mission Local reported that the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District’s warnings appeared to come from someone digging through its old posts.
Meta also loosened its hateful conduct rules in January 2025, and GLAAD’s 2025 Social Media Safety Index said the company’s shift since 2024 has disproportionately suppressed LGBTQ+ users and content. Still, no reporting so far shows Meta deliberately targeting queer bars. Sokol told the Times he doesn’t believe it does, and the Stud’s Rachel Ryan said she wasn’t accusing Meta of bad intent.
What Gay Bars Can Do If Instagram Suspends Their Account
Bars in Europe have one tool U.S. bars don’t. Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, Meta has to tell a user which rule they broke and let them appeal. Masuma Shahid teaches law at Erasmus University Rotterdam and studies AI and LGBTQ+ rights. She said Meta’s system doesn’t meet that bar: “These kinds of systems are operating in the EU in contravention of European rules.” A coalition of Dutch queer venues and digital rights groups sent Meta a formal letter of demand in May.
In the U.S., the bars that got pages back mostly had help. Wiener posted about the Stud. González’s office called Meta for Catch One. Club Cobra returned after the Times asked about it. Owners also built backups while they waited. Edelson tried TikTok ads and grew Catch One’s email list. The Eagle opened a new account, and by Folsom weekend it had about 3,000 followers, down from nearly 20,000.
Anthem now has its original account back and plans to keep a backup. Orlando marked 10 years since the Pulse shooting in June.
