Colombian court rules Meta wrongly removed porn star's Instagram account

Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that Meta violated a pornographic actor's right to freedom of expression when it removed her Instagram account, finding the platform acted without a clear and transparent justification and applied its nudity policies inconsistently.

The court said the deletion of Esperanza Gómez's account, which had more than five million followers, was not properly justified and that Meta failed to offer comparable treatment to other accounts with similar content. The 45-year-old actress had said the closure affected her ability to work and that the decision was influenced by her pornographic activities beyond the platform. Meta maintained that the account had breached its rules on nudity.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court acknowledged social media platforms' need to moderate content but said that need did not justify closing a user's account "without a clear and transparent justification." The court found Meta "applied its policies on nudity and sexual services inconsistently," noting that other accounts with similar content remained active.

The court ordered Meta to review and adjust Instagram's terms of use and privacy policy so that users are clearly aware of the mechanisms for challenging moderation decisions and to "more precisely define" rules on implicit sexual content. It also said that if social media platforms use a person's offline activities as a criterion for content moderation, they must state that criterion explicitly. The ruling did not specify sanctions for noncompliance or whether Gómez would receive any monetary or other redress. BBC News reported that Meta had not immediately commented on the decision.

Gómez had argued in court that Meta did not follow due process and that the account closure went beyond the platform, harming her livelihood. Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, defended its enforcement of content rules as necessary to uphold community standards.

Legal experts and free-speech advocates have increasingly scrutinized how global platforms apply content moderation across jurisdictions. The Colombian ruling fits a recent pattern of Latin American courts requiring social networks to clarify or change moderation practices. In Brazil, the Supreme Court ruled that social platforms are directly liable for illegal content, including hate speech, and must act quickly to remove it and accounts that proliferate it. That decision followed a judge's order to suspend dozens of X accounts over alleged disinformation; X was briefly banned in Brazil before complying with the order and paying a fine of $5.1 million.

The Constitutional Court's decision underscores tensions between platforms' global content policies and national constitutional protections. Colombia's court emphasized that social media posts are protected under the nation's constitution and should be limited only in a proportionate way when necessary. The ruling directs a major U.S.-based technology company to make its moderation rules and appeal mechanisms more transparent for Colombian users, but it leaves open questions about enforcement and remedies.

Industry observers said the decision may prompt other national courts to press platforms for clearer, more consistent rules on sexual content and to require explicit disclosure when offline behavior is used in moderation decisions. Platforms operating across multiple legal systems face growing demands to reconcile global policies with local legal standards, including constitutional protections for expression.

The case will be watched by content creators, legal practitioners and regulators across the region as governments and courts continue to define the balance between platform moderation and users' rights to free expression.