Peloton prohibits the creation or use of the #StopTheSteal tag

Peloton, a company known for its internet-connected bikes and treadmills, delves into the chaos of Stop The Steal. The company is now preventing users from creating the #StopTheSteal tag from within the app, saying the tag „doesn’t meet our guidelines“ when a user goes to create it. Peloton Community Guidance It specifically prohibits „hateful, aggressive and obscene speech“ as well as „bullying, harassment and other offensive behavior.“ We reached out for additional clarification on when Peloton began banning this tagging and why.

The tags act on Peloton as community identifiers. When people join a tag, it appears under their name on the company’s leaderboard during training, and they can communicate with other members of that tag. Anyone can create a tag, and new tags appear in response to the #StopTheSteal ban. Groups like #StopTheSteall, #StopTheSteel, #StopTheCensorship, and #StopTheFraud were marked as „new“ in the app.

This isn’t the first time Peloton has had to ban potentially seditious phrases. Last year, the company Banned political talk From official Facebook groups as well as tags related to QAnon, which deliver the same community guidance message. Although the app does not allow live chatting with people in the class, the tags still share specific messages. The #BlueLivesMatter and #BlackLivesMatter tags are still allowed inside the app.

Other tech companies have also moved to limit hashtag access. Instagram allows the hashtag to be on the platform but only shows the „highest“ posts of it, not the most recent.