Meta attributed the Saturday suspension of the No Kings Coalition's Instagram presence to an automated tool associated with Anthropic's Claude AI system. The company's communications leadership revealed the cause in a statement released the following day, explaining that the tool had accessed account data at roughly quadruple the typical user rate, prompting Meta's security systems to flag the activity as potential bot behaviour.
Andy Stone, Meta's vice president of communications, provided the explanation through a social media post on Sunday. The No Kings Coalition, which organises opposition to Trump, experienced approximately 90 minutes of downtime on October 17 while executing a nationwide voter engagement initiative ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The campaign encompassed nearly 3,000 separate activities across the country.
The coalition's weekend activities included marches to polling locations that were operating on Saturday and Sunday, alongside voter registration assistance efforts. The organisation brings together hundreds of member groups spanning the political spectrum, including Indivisible, Common Cause, and the ACLU.
Indivisible holds a position on the national steering committee alongside eight other organisations and has already organised three rounds of No Kings demonstrations since June 2025.
Meta's technical team characterised the Claude tool's behaviour as accessing profiles, posts, and hashtags at approximately four times normal human browsing speed, occurring in concentrated, rapid intervals. Stone characterised this pattern as consistent with automated bot activity rather than organic user behaviour.
We want to reiterate our sincere apology for the error
Andy Stone
Stone's statement did not specify which particular Claude tool was responsible, who operated it, or what purpose the tool was serving when accessing the account.
On Saturday, Stone had initially attributed the suspension to elevated rates of posting, sharing, or commenting that triggered Meta's automated systems, characterising the removal as a clear mistake. An automated review conducted roughly one hour following the suspension determined that the account should not have been taken offline.
Although the account returned to service, the administrators remained unable to access it for an extended period. The coalition reported that complete access was restored at 17:33 ET.
Coalition representatives expressed frustration with the suspension, emphasising Instagram's critical role in their communications strategy with supporters. The group did not provide an immediate statement in response to Bloomberg's inquiry.
The coalition's upcoming priorities include a national organising call dedicated to voter participation, according to Bloomberg.
Source: The Next Web
