Why are queer L.A. nightclubs disappearing from Facebook and Instagram?

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Set us as preferred Marty Sokol woke up on New Year’s Day this year exhausted from celebrating.Club Cobra, his bar in North Hollywood, is a fixture on the queer Latin nightlife scene in Los Angeles.

When he logged into his clubs’ social media accounts to post about the night’s revelry, he noticed something weird.Club Cobra’s Instagram page had been taken down.

He couldn’t figure out why.“I figured we could go through the proper channels to get it back,” Sokol said.He’d never posted anything racier than PG-level party fliers.

After months of contacting Meta, Instagram’s parent company, he said he got no meaningful response.Pages for his other venue, Club Chico in Montebello, went down in May as well.It got stranger.

A.I.-driven search engines listed his clubs as permanently closed.Longtime regulars texted him condolences.

By June 1, he said, every single one of his club’s Instagram pages had been suspended, along with around a dozen pages from his staff and affiliated club promoters.California Some are raising concerns about opening a bar near six school campuses in the Westlake neighborhood.“Your audience goes to look for you, and you are gone,” Sokol said.

“For 15 years we developed hundreds of thousands of followers who we were able to build community with.Then without warning or cause, they ripped away our ability to communicate with our community.”Several prominent nightclubs in California, many catering to queer clubgoers of color, saw their Facebook and Instagram pages mysterious suspended in recent months, leaving these independent venues unable to reach their fans.

Owners say attendance dropped off significantly, leaving precarious venues now fearful of digital invisibility.State political leaders worry it could be devastating for queer nightlife.

“Margins in nightlife and any small business are very thin,” Sokol said.“The world is run by social media, and if you...