Welp, the Instagram gods decided that this comment was spam/abusive and immediately removed it. My first guess is the fist emoji, but the common meaning of that is “solidarity,” especially in the context of an activism post like that. I tried to comment again without that emoji but got a generic “try again later” message. Maybe the automated system thinks it’s a misleading comment about IG features, but it’s not.

Today I tried commenting on someone else’s Halloween costume and got a more extensive message:

“Try again later. We restrict certain activity to protect our community. Based on your use, this action will be unavailable for you until 2023-10-31. Tell us if you think we made a mistake.

Learn more in account status (link)”

Of course that learn more link doesn’t work and only takes me back to the homepage. Seems pretty excessive for leaving a friendly comment on a mutual’s post — not even a stranger.