Meta says its working urgently to fix a problem with Instagram which results in a "results hidden" message when users search for the terms "Democrat" or "Democrats".
Meta has insisted that is not the case, saying it is a technical problem which has also affected other hashtags, including a Republican one.
However, social media expert Matt Navarra said it was "embarrassing" for Instagram regardless.
While users who type "#Democrat" or "#Democrats" see no results, the hashtag "Republican" returns 3.3 million posts on the social media platform.
By manually searching Instagram for "Democrats", rather than clicking on a hashtag, users are greeted by a screen reading "we've hidden these results".
"Results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content," it says.
There are also limited results when people search for "Republicans" as opposed to "Republican". »
