Peloton, a company known for its internet-connected bikes and treadmills, is sailing into the Stop The Steal mess. The company is now blocking users from creating a #StopTheSteal tag within the app, and says the tag does not meet our guidelines if a user is going to create it. Peloton’s community guidelines specifically prohibit “hate, offensive and obscene speech” as well as “bullying, harassment and other offensive behavior.” We contacted for further clarification on when Peloton started blocking this hashtag and why.
Markers on Peloton function as community identifiers. When people join a label, it appears on their company rankings during their workouts and they can hang out with other members of the label. Anyone can create a label, and new labels appear in response to the #StopTheSteal ban. Groups like #StopTheSteall, #StopTheSteel, #StopTheCensorship and #StopTheFraud are marked as ‘new’ in the app.
This is not the first time that Peloton has had to ban potentially inciting phrases. Last year, the company banned political conversations from its official Facebook groups as well as QAnon-related labels and offered the same messages to community guidelines. Although the app does not chat live with people in a class, the labels still share specific messages. The #BlueLivesMatter and #BlackLivesMatter labels are still allowed within the app.
Other technology ventures have also moved to limit the reach of this hashtag. Instagram allows the hashtag to exist on the platform, but only shows ‘top’ posts for it, not the most recent.