Facebook unblocks ‘#saltbae’ hashtag after Vietnamese minister’s golden steak

Facebook’s parent company said on Tuesday it had unblocked the hashtag for celebrity chef Nusret Gokce’s nickname ‘#saltbae’, having found the tag had been blocked globally days after a video was posted online of Gokce feeding a gold-encrusted steak to a senior Vietnamese Communist Party official in London.

“We’ve unblocked this hashtag on Facebook and we’re investigating why this happened,” a spokesperson for Facebook operator Meta told Reuters, confirming the tag had been blocked for all Facebook users around the world, not just in Vietnam.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the tag had been blocked, and the spokesperson declined to comment on potential reasons. While it was blocked, a search for the hashtag generated a message saying community standards had been violated.