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Humans of New York re-uploads picture of gay teen after it disappears on Facebook

A moment of concern buzzed through social media sites after a picture posted to Facebook by the popular blog Humans of New York (HONY) disappeared.

The photograph, reportedly taken down by Facebook administrators on Friday, showed a teary-eyed boy holding his head with the caption, “I’m homosexual and I’m afraid about what my future will be and that people won’t like me.”

Brandon Stanton, the creator of HONY, which currently has over 13 million followers on Facebook, hoped for the best regarding the sudden removal of the photo, commenting: “I can’t imagine them censoring this young man’s story on purpose, and I’m hoping it was a glitch from their automatic systems that won’t be repeated,” Jezebel.com reported.

Facebook later revealed that the removal of the picture was indeed the result of an error with the site’s “technical infrastructure,” The Telegraph reports, which led to the post being temporarily invisible. 

The picture was later re-uploaded by HONY and received a massive outpouring of support for the child in the comment section.

Among the slew of supporters was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who encouraged the young man to “find the people who love and believe in you.”