Meta says a Claude AI tool triggered the No Kings Instagram suspension

Protester holds a black “No Kings in America” flag over a crowd with US flags and handmade signs outside a columned building — **Protesters at a No Kings rally in October 2025.**

*Credit: Mike Newbry on Unsplash*

Image Credits — **Protesters at a No Kings rally in October 2025.**

*Credit: Mike Newbry on Unsplash*

Meta said that a tool linked to Anthropic’s Claude AI triggered the suspension of the No Kings Coalition’s Instagram account on Saturday, October 17.

Andy Stone, Meta’s vice president of communications, gave the new explanation in a social media post on Sunday.

The No Kings Coalition, an organisation opposed to Trump, stated that its page was down for approximately 90 minutes as part of a series of activities aimed at encouraging early voting before the November 3 midterm elections, with nearly 3,000 events taking place throughout the United States.

The events involved marches to the polling stations, which were open at the weekend, as well as assistance with voter registration. The coalition comprises hundreds of groups, including Indivisible, Common Cause, and the ACLU.

Indivisible is a member of the national steering committee, together with eight other groups, and has already carried out three rounds of No Kings protests since June 2025.

The engineers at Meta stated that the Claude tool read profiles, posts, and hashtags at about four times the speed of a normal person, in brief, intense bursts. Stone described the pattern as resembling automated bot traffic rather than a human browsing.

“We want to reiterate our sincere apology for the error,” Stone wrote.

However, he did not say which Claude tool was involved, who was running it, or what it was doing with the account.

On Saturday, Andy Stone said that high rates of posting, sharing, or commenting triggered the company’s systems, and he also added that the suspension was clearly an error.

An automated review about an hour after the suspension found that the account should not have been removed, Meta said.

The page came back online, but its administrators stayed locked out for longer. The coalition said that full access was restored at 17:33 ET.

Organisers criticised Meta for the suspension, saying Instagram is a key way to reach their supporters. The coalition did not immediately respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.

Next, the coalition plans a national organising call focused on voter turnout, Bloomberg reported.

Story by Ana-Maria Stanciuc

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I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, (show all) I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, and change. I write about startups, venture capital, digital policy, and Europe ecosystem, with an eye on the larger story beneath them: who gets to build the future, who profits from it, and how Europe is learning to speak in a louder voice of its own. Before moving into senior editorial leadership, I've built my career for over +10 years across journalism, storytelling, content strategy, SEO, and digital publishing, with experience in SaaS, hospitality, art, and culture.