Meta says a Claude AI tool's heavy reading activity set off the automated shutdown of the No Kings Instagram account on Saturday, Oct. 17, and apologizes
Organizers say the page was down about 90 minutes and they stayed locked out of its controls for about four hours; Chris Murphy (Sen-D Connecticut) has called for an investigation.
Meta said on Sunday, Oct. 18 that its security system wrongly took the No Kings Instagram account offline on Saturday, Oct. 17 after a Claude AI tool (Anthropic's chatbot) read the account's profiles, posts and hashtags at about four times normal volume, per Bloomberg. The anti-Trump coalition was holding nearly 3,000 early-voting events (casting ballots before Election Day) that day. Meta's account. Spokesman Andy Stone first blamed very frequent posting and wrote on Saturday, Oct. 17 that the action "was clearly taken in error… we sincerely apologize." On Sunday, Oct. 18 he said the bursts "resembled automated bot traffic." An automated re-review restored the account about an hour later. Meta has not said which tool it was or who ran it. The timeline. No Kings says the page was unavailable about 90 minutes and organizers could not reach its backend for about four hours, until 5:33 p.m. Eastern. The Guardian reported "several hours." Organizers said members "posted only a handful of times." Still open. Murphy has called for an investigation; Bernie Sanders (Sen-I Vermont) blamed "billionaire ownership of the media." No Kings had not answered Bloomberg on the Claude explanation. It plans a national organizing call on Wednesday, Oct. 21.