Recently, Twitter started attaching a sensitivity warning to Gina Carano‘s account, presumably due to the former Star Wars actress’ controversial social media activity. Though that caused her fans to hit back at the platform, as Carano arguably hasn’t broken Twitter’s rules, the logic behind the decision can be followed. Now, Instagram is doing something similar when it comes to content relating to the star, but this time there doesn’t seem to be any sense behind it.
Carano’s supporters have noticed that when they go to repost any content from fansite @GinaCaranoNet on their own accounts, whether in their main feeds or in their stories, Instagram automatically adds a disclaimer to do with the pandemic that links to official information on COVID-19. This is despite the fact that the fan account and its associated website have never mentioned the global situation in any of their posts.
First, the user receives a notification from Instagram which reads: “Since your post includes information about COVID-19, we’ve added a link to a health source.” A disclaimer then appears below their post which directs users to the COVID-19 Information Center. Oddly, though, it appears that this misinformation warning doesn’t appear when fans attempt to share content from the real Carano’s account.
It’s likely this is a glitch, then, and Instagram intended to flag the actress’ own page instead. After all, one of the many things Carano has come under flak for from her detractors is her dismissive attitude to the pandemic, having suggested face masks, vaccines and more aren’t necessary in previous online activity. Presumably, Instagram was attempting to attach this warning to Carano’s posts in case she echoed these views again in the future.
Obviously, this is another incident that will have the actress’ supporters claiming that Gina Carano is being either censored or silenced by both the media and social media, following her firing by Lucasfilm in February. But if this was an attempt by Instagram to do just that, it doesn’t seem to have worked.
