Troye where have you gone???
It's no secret that we love Troye Sivan here at Out.com. He's one of our favorite singers, actors, and celebs, so naturally, we search for his name and account on Instagram all the time. But when we searched earlier today, something very... let's say strange happened.
On Instagram, a search for the term "troye" used to turn up results for the iconic twinky Australian singer. But now, as of this writing, it instead has a warning that the term "troye" may be "associated with the sale of drugs" and is accompanied by a "get help" button that leads to the landing page for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) national helpline.
mey rude
"This may be associated with the sale of drugs," a message on Instagram's search function reads before leading to the SAMHSA button. "The sale, purchase, or trade of illicit drugs can cause harm to yourself and others and is illegal in most countries. If you or someone you know struggle with substance abuse, you can get help through confidential treatment referrals, prevention, and recovery support."
We checked on three different devices, and all of them showed this result when looking for the term "troye."
Raffy Ermac
As far as we can tell, "troye" is not a term associated with drugs. Urban Dictionary has no references to it, and none of us on the Out team have heard the word used in conjunction with drugs or drug use.
A further Googling of the name also yields no results that would suggest a slang meaning related to drugs.
Raffy Ermac
Thankfully, when you search his full name, both terms "Troye" and "Sivan," the singer's page still comes up.
Still, we can't help but wonder why Instagram is trying to block us from seeing results for the search term "troye," since most users probably won't take the time out to search for the singer's full name when looking for his account.
Is it because Sivan has talked openly about using poppers before? We know the singer used them to help get the right look for his "Rush" single art, but is that a reason to associate his name with drugs? Or is "troye" really a new drug-related slang term we're just not hip to yet?
At the time of this writing, the search for "troye" has been blocked on Instagram for at least an hour.
We have contacted Instagram's parent company Meta for comment/clarification, but have not yet heard back.
UPDATE: Shortly after this story was initially published, Meta fixed the error. We're waiting for an official statement from Meta and will update the story once we get it.
