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Why does Instagram hate hashtag #Kansas?

Posted at 11:07 AM, May 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-12 15:54:11-04

Kansas has been temporarily erased from existence — at least as far as photo-sharing service Instagram is concerned.

If you tried to search #Kansas on Instagram Thursday morning, you would have found the state hashtag reduced to about 30 top posts and a notice that "recent posts from #Kansas are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram's community guidelines."

What does this mean?

Instagram is no longer displaying new #Kansa content because someone (or possibly more than one person) has been filling the tag with inappropriate, inflammatory or otherwise not-safe-for-work pictures. 

According to The Data Pack, Instagram currently censors dozens of hashtags in the name of maintaining a clean online community.

Some of them make sense — there's probably not anything fit for public consumption filed under #takeitoff or #feetofatlanta, and #proanorexia or #probulimia tags can create communities that encourage unhealthy behavior.

Others, like #Kansas, #publicrelations and #killingit, appear to be inoffensive categories that have temporarily fallen victim to salacious or abusive spammers.

(Or maybe someone at Instagram headquarters is a big Missouri Tigers fan. You never know.)

The same thing happened to a popular Philadelphia hashtag, #Philly, in late 2015, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Today, we're again able to search that tag for all of the rich cheese steak- and Eagles-related content it has to offer, so hopefully Kansas will be cleared out soon.

Just keep your #feetofAtlanta content where it belongs, okay?

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