The International Shooting Sports Federation is the organizer of world cup pistol, rifle and shotgun competition events all over the world and they qualify the competitors who shoot in the Olympics. As of Wednesday, they no longer have a Facebook page.
As the Times of India reports,
In a bizarre case of monitoring of online content, Facebook decided to delete International Shooting Sports Federation’s ISSF) official page from their site.
Posts related to guns and ammunition can be one of the reasons for the deletion of the ISSF page. As per their policy, Facebook prohibits promotion of ‘firearms, ammunition, weapons of any kind, fireworks and explosives and ads promoting the brandishing of firearms’.
Obviously, the ISSF promotes international competition, not brandishing firearms. If the ISSF is now somehow inappropriate for inclusion on Facebook, no firearms-related site is safe.
“We have sent multiple inquiries to the Facebook support team since Wednesday night. The ISSF lawyers sent formal letters asking to restore the page as well. But there is still no answer.
Unfortunately it’s not possible (to get the reason for deletion of the page) at the moment as there is no feedback from Facebook,” (ISSF administrative council member Anna) Leshchikova said.
This was probably a mistake. A knee-jerk cancellation by a pasty-faced 20-something drone somewhere in Silicon Valley who was affronted by the existence of an organization centered around firearms. It will likely be corrected once higher-ups get enough complaints.
Let’s hope so.