Fuller

Shadowbanned and Silenced: How Instagram’s AI Moderation is Depriving Young People and Marginalized Communities of Reliable Health Information

Staff

To report on shadowbans on social media, Fuller staff had to work around onerous barriers: algorithms. The staff examined how social media platforms remove or restrict content from creators who focus on bodies, sex and sexuality for educational or health-focused purposes. Sometimes, those creators’ content or their accounts are removed. Sometimes their reach to non-followers is limited. 

Those restrictions and censorship disproportionately affect creators from marginalized communities, including those who are women or LGBTQ+. The content, creators contend, is reliable information of genuine educational value. 

“The originality of this effort to break through social media filtering makes it worthy of a Breaking Barriers award,” a judge wrote. “The journalists and creators involved found a way to beat the algorithms and undercut censorship of information about sexual health issues, often in places that need it the most.”

Read the Winning Work

These creators help millions of people talk about bodies, sex and sexuality. Their content is being removed because of it July 28, 2025

Instagram video component July 28, 2025