Imagine Instagram blocking non-followers from seeing a post by Steph Curry because it featured a basketball, or a post from U.S. Olympic track star Noah Lyles that highlighted his running shoes. Absurd, right? 

Yet that's exactly what happened to U.S. Paralympic athlete McKenna Geer, who was shadow banned by Meta after a post sharing her love of the shooting sports. 

Earlier this month, Ms. Geer shared a photo on Instagram of the air rifle she used to qualify for the Paralympic Games. The company flagged the photo as out of line with its guidelines and informed her that nonfollowers wouldn’t be able to view her account or content in Instagram’s search, explore suggested users or similar features. “Our Recommendations Guidelines help to promote content that fosters a safe community on Instagram,” Meta wrote in its explanation of why it wouldn’t promote her account.

“I have always feared the day the media would censor my sport and speech just because I use firearms,” Ms. Geer posted on Instagram on July 17. “That day has finally come.” Meta initially blocked Ms. Geer’s ability to appeal the decision, and her account remains shadow-banned while her appeal is under review with only a month to go before the competition. Meantime, the tech company is shielded from civil lawsuits under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

As USA Shooting board member Tim Rupli shares at the Wall St. Journal, Geer isn't the only competitive shooter to run afoul of Meta's ridiculous "community standards." U.S. Olympic shotgunner Conner Prince has been subjected to the same treatment, according to Rubli, who also shared that Facebook (another Meta property) “unpublished” the page belonging to the West Point Rifle Team “because Army West Point Rifle goes against our Community Standards.”

Kelly Reisdorf, CEO of USA Shooting, says she is concerned about the company’s decision: “By silencing an athlete’s voice, you infringe not only on their freedom of expression but subtly on their right to bear arms as well, as these platforms are critical for educating and sharing the legitimate and safe use of firearms in sport.”

To honor the Olympic spirit of fair-play competition and nondiscrimination, Meta should reverse its restrictions and restore the athletes’ accounts. These men and women have earned their place representing the U.S. on the world stage. Why wouldn’t Meta let their sportsmanship shine?

The obvious answer is that Meta, along with other Big Tech companies like Google and YouTube parent Alphabet, view gun ownership of any kind as a problem that needs to be solved... or at the very least, have bent the knee to anti-gun activists who've been demanding social media companies crack down on gun-related content. 

Last month YouTube announced changes to its firearms policies, stating that "content intended to sell firearms, instruct viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories, or instruct viewers on how to install those accessories is not allowed on YouTube." Apparently, even having a gun company as a sponsor is enough to get channels in trouble, as Hickok45 and his son John recently shared with their millions of followers. 

If Meta, Alphabet, and their subsidiaries were only cracking down on posts where laws were being broken or guns were being misused, that would be one thing. But these tech companies, which serve as the virtual town square for most Americans these days, aren't differentiating between the criminal misuse of firearms and the legitimate use of firearms for sport, recreation, and self-defense. 

Supposedly this is all about protecting kids from videos that "might not be appropriate for underage users,", but there's plenty of violent content for kids to access on the platform, including the wildly popular (why, I have no idea) Skibidi Toilet series, run by Alexey Gerasimov, aka DaFuq?!Boom! 

Should Meta rescind its restrictions on the competitive shooters it's muzzled? Without a doubt. Will the company do so? I doubt it, at least not without pressure from its users. The gun control lobby has engaged in extensive efforts to get these platforms to crack down on all gun-related content, and without a grassroots effort on the part of the 2A community to restore some common sense to these "community standards", the unreasonable restrictions are likely to continue.... and become even more onerous in the future.