Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

A Spanish netizen’s snaps of his mum’s first traditional stew of the year have been removed by Instagram for ‘graphic violence’.

Richard Barreira Banos from Vigo in the north-western Spanish region of Galicia posted the photos of his mum’s ‘cocido’, consisting of vegetables, chickpeas, chorizo sausage and other lumps of meat, but the images were swiftly removed from his Instagram account.

He was told the images “breached community guidelines” concerning the publication of “graphic violence, language that incites harassment, violence and bullying or sexual activity”.

Barreira Banos complained: “It is incredible. There are loads of restaurants and chefs posting photos of their meals on Instagram. You can literally see hundreds of posts of food and burgers.”

He told Central European News (CEN): “My 65-year-old mum Rosi Banos was worried about me talking about censorship and breaking the rules on the first day.

“Now, she is more concerned that the photos did not depict her much-loved ‘cocido’ very well!”

Barreira Banos said he posted the images just after enjoying the lunch, but they were removed from his account shortly afterwards.

He called the post’s removal “surreal” and that “it does not matter if someone reported it, it should be explained that someone took issue with it”.

He also said that “Facebook [who own Instagram] sent a press statement saying that it was a mistake” and the picture appeared again on Instagram.

It is unclear whether the post was reported by another user or simply selected by Instagram’s algorithms.

He also tagged the Galician cultural authorities and urged them to “take action against this criticism of our culinary culture”.

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.