Twitter briefly stopped showing search results for terms like gay and bisexual (TWTR)

Gay marriage

Twitter stopped showing results for certain search terms, including "gay" and "bisexual".
The company, which has struggled to filter content appropriately since its inception, said it had pinpointed an "error".

People searching Twitter for terms such as #gay, #lesbian, or #bisexual were left confused over the weekend after the social media platform failed to show any results, Gizmodo reported.

Some Twitter users accused the company of deliberately silencing LGBT news, photos, thoughts and opinions but it looks like it was simply an accident.

It's possible that it occurred as part of an effort from Twitter to automatically filter pornographic material.

Those that searched for terms like bisexual or bisexuality (with or without a hashtag) were greeted with the following message, according to Gizmodo.

"The term you entered did not bring up any results. You may have mistyped your term or your search setting could be protecting you from some potentially sensitive content."

Changing the platform's settings so that it didn't filter adult content reportedly made no difference.

Twitter said it was a search results "error" that would be fixed soon and on Monday morning the issues appear to had been fixed.

We’ve identified an error with search results for certain terms. We apologize for this. We’re working quickly to resolve & will update soon.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 5, 2017

"We've identified an error with search results for certain terms," wrote Twitter Support on Twitter on Sunday. "We apologize for this. We're working quickly to resolve & will update soon."

Twitter has struggled in the past to filter content on its platform, with fake news, terrorist material, and pornography all surfacing on Twitter.

Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group wrote: ".@TwitterSupport we're surprised to see some searches for #bisexual and #gay blocked. We urge you to fix—#LGBTQ visibility matters."

.@TwitterSupport we’re surprised to see some searches for #bisexual and #gay blocked. We urge you to fix - #LGBTQ visibility matters. http://pic.twitter.com/RTjcCdl7Pc
— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) November 5, 2017