Friday, April 3
Clubmakers on Tuesday confirmed to rbb that several Berlin clubs have had their Instagram accounts blocked by Meta. This includes fetish club KitKatClub (whose Instagram is now back up and running) and the sex-positive club Insomnia (whose Instagram remains blocked). Other Berlin and Berlin-adjacent intuitions, such as Gegen and Klub Verboten, have faced similar problems in the past.
A spokesman for KitKat announced, “Our Instagram account with 220,000 followers was deleted on 24 March without warning or justification.” They added that they didn’t know why the measure was taken: “we always tried to comply with the strict Meta standards.” The KitKat account was verified account with a blue tick beside the username, which means Instagram confirms that the profile truly represents the company it claims to be.
Dominique, the boss of Insomnia, reported a similar shut down without warning. “This is tough American censorship,” she claimed. In mid-March, the first account with 25,000 followers was shut down. “A week later, our second account followed with more than 12,000 followers.”
She also voiced her confusion about why such a measure was taken. “We have a very strict picture policy: FSK 12,” she said. “That means that everything is covered. There are no free breasts to see or any other genitals… They’re just people in tight outfits, having fun, dancing, smiling at the camera.”
These blows come at a time when clubs are facing enough problems. Of course, the closing of their accounts has significant economic consequences. For Insomnia, the entire pre-sale and ticketing were run via Instagram. “You don’t build up 25,000 followers overnight. We have invested a lot of work and energy.”
It raises the concern of Berlin clubs being so dependent on such a huge US company for promotion and whether turning to platforms outside of Meta is an option. But as Dominique stated, Instagram is an “input gateway to get in touch with people or to present people with an idea they were not looking for.”
Insomnia has considered turning to the Berlin Club Commission to “maybe get lawyer’s advice again, whether something can be done there. But you feel quite small and powerless against such an excessively large corporation like Meta.”
