“Back Online Again!” Those three words greeted visitors to the Instagram account @the_aids_memorial on Wednesday afternoon. The message arrived after much confusion, hurt and anger: During the past three weeks, hundreds of tributes on the beloved social media account had been mysteriously deleted.
Confounding the problem, the account’s founder, who goes by Stuart from Scotland, had told PinkNews earlier this week that he had been blocked from accessing it—and that Instagram was not helping to resolve the issue.
When POZ reached out to him for an update, Stuart confirmed that he was back online and able to post tributes on the photo-sharing platform. However, it’s unclear whether the underlying problem has been resolved because Instagram hasn’t provided Stuart with an explanation for why he was blocked from his own account or why hundreds of posts were deleted to begin with—only to be reinstated and deleted again.
“These setbacks don’t help,” Stuart told POZ, “but I need to push forward. I feel there has been a total disregard by Instagram to address these issues,” he said, noting that the interruptions are “upsetting many followers of the page needlessly by wiping away their tributes to loved ones and the legacy of the AIDS epidemic. It also totally undermines the memorial mission as a place to find solace and comfort. I just want people to feel comfortable sending submissions.” Read more via POZ