By Daily Sports on November 25, 2021

Manchester United’s officially-recognised LGBTQ+ supporters’ group has asked Instagram to apologise after its account was suspended on Rainbow Laces activation day. The Rainbow Devils account was removed after a post announcing a newly-installed rainbow banner at Old Trafford met with a large number of abusive responses.

The group accused Instagram’s owners Meta of “siding with... haters”, but Meta later reinstated the account and told Sky Sports News it had been taken down in error. Rainbow Devils then released a second statement calling for a public apology and a more proactive approach from the tech giants in dealing with abusive posts.

The statement read: “Following our early statement about Instagram disabling the account of Rainbow Devils, the officially recognised LGBTQ+ fangroup of Manchester United, we are very pleased to see that our account has been reinstalled.

“The fact remains however that it should never have been taken down in the first place.

“We are very grateful for the support of Manchester United and allies in the media who helped us get Instagram to take notice, but we should not have needed this help and are concerned about those in our community who face discrimination on a daily basis and cannot call on influential allies to support them.

“We call on Instagram to publicly apologise, resolve not to allow this to happen again to any minority group and to proactively remove all homophobic replies to our posts.”

Sky Sports News has contacted Instagram’s owners Meta for a response to the second statement. The initial statement had read: “Hours after Manchester United FC unveiled the new banner at Old Trafford supporting its officially recognised LGBTQ+ fan group, Rainbow Devils, Instagram responded by suspending the Rainbow Devils account.

“Earlier today, Manchester United FC announced that it had installed a permanent banner at the ground in support of the Rainbow Laces campaign, a story that was shared on both the club’s social media accounts and those of the Rainbow Devils.

“While there have been many messages of support, there have also been thousands of homophobic responses including posts threatening to report us. Evidently, these reports were successful as Instagram disabled the Rainbow Devils account.

“Fan groups like Rainbow Devils exist to provide support for the lesbian, gay, bi, and trans football community and our allies to help create a welcoming and inclusive environment in the game and a safe haven from the haters who would discriminate against us.

“Today, Instagram sided with those haters and chose to remove us from its platform. Rainbow Devils calls on Instagram to reinstate the account immediately and apologise for the hurt it has caused LGBTQ+ football fans and to ensure this does not happen again.”

After Sky Sports News contacted Instagram’s owners Meta for comment, a spokesperson from the organisation said: “We removed the account in error and immediately restored it as soon as we were made aware of the mistake”. (Sky Sports)

•PHOTO: Banner of Man Utd’s official LGBTQ+ group

Source Daily Sports

Posted November 25, 2021

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