by Charlie Jacoby
British Olympic hopeful Courtney Palmer-Jones speaks for all shooters when she complains that Facebook’s restrictions on guns are ‘a form of censorship’. Her interview appears on the BBC website.
She is a victim of pointless, virtue-signalling by social media execs, a growing trend that does nothing to keep society safe from nutters with guns. That, at least, is the conclusion of a survey of Fieldsports Channel viewers.
“Social media is turning into a bit of a nightmare for anyone involved in the wider area of shooting,” says one of them, Phil Taylor. “We’ve had various pages taken down on Facebook about reloading. There are four admins on those page. We do not allow anything on the pages – on the buy-and-sell-page – that shouldn’t be on there, for example that’s on a ticket [i.e listed on a UK firearms or shotgun certificate]. We monitor every post before it’s published on there to make sure there isn’t anything – and we have still lost two pages.
“I don’t know how we get around it. It’s just getting absolutely ridiculous.”
We asked the Fieldsports Channel audience to tell us about their experiences chatting about their pastimes – guns, shooting and hunting – on Facebook and Instagram. The results are not positive for the Meta management. Just 15% said they had encountered no difficulties. For the rest, they faced punishments ranging from ‘Facebook jailtime’ to outright bans.
“The regulations that have been put in place aren’t being monitored correctly, and they haven’t got the ability to do it,” says Andy Norris from UK gun distributor Viking Arms about Facebook and Instagram. “Companies like Viking or gunshops that are legally selling firearms and ammunition are having their posts removed, even though they are a business and their posts are within Facebook’s requirements.
“We appeal. We either have no response or we have an ‘AI’ response saying they have upheld it.”
Facebook and Instagram hit more than half of the Fieldsports Channel audience with a community rules violation and about a third with hate speech or violent content. For 15% of our audience, a third-party caused the removal of content or a page by a post who either ignored the platform’s rules or deliberately chose to post against those rules. For those running businesses online, this is the same as having Facebook and Instagram lock the doors of their premises.
They didn’t take it lying down. 56% of our viewers hit by a violation appealed the decision. Of those, half report both loss of revenue and additional time and cost to establish new social media profiles.
Facebook and Instagram’s service is not quick. It took them an average 5 days to resolve the issue.
“Facebook, Instagram and all the social media outlets that we use every day seem to be attacking our industry,” says Jon Bailey of Staffordshire and online gunshop Bailey’s Shooting & Countrywear. “I’ve had various posts removed, and have then had to appeal, and then been reinstated because it turns out they don’t go against Facebook’s or Instagram’s guidelines. But it does reach the point now where you’re worried about what you can post: whether a certain picture of a certain rifle, for example, is going automatically to get your page closed down, which happens a lot.
“Only a few days ago, my page was unpublished for about an hour-and-a-half for drugs” – there is a forlorn pause – “which makes no sense at all.
“I hope it will improve – as per Facebook’s guidelines – as bricks-and-mortar premises here in the UK, selling firearms as we do, we’re actually allowed to advertise. So, I don’t understand.”
Of the businesses who answered our survey, 83% encountered content removal and 59% had a temporary ban from Facebook or Instagram. We had a handful of our own guys – Facebook and Instagram call them ‘influencers’ – who answered the survey. They had all had problems with social media restrictions, with content removal and shadow banning, which means reduced visibility, the two they suffered from most.
Phil Taylor explains shadow-banning: “It means that nobody can see your post outside of your followers. To gain any traction on a post – of you are trying to advertise a product – it’s not getting out to the wider audience.”
Most reported loss of followers and decreased engagement as a result. For individuals, there’s a greater than average sense of helplessness about the big social media platforms. Only 28% appealed. 72% did not.
“Meta doesn’t seem to like shooting sports,” says Phil Taylor. “These are fully legal sports. They are in the Olympic Games. It doesn’t matter if it is in the UK or in the USA or wherever, it’s all legal. Meta treats us like criminals.”
So what could Facebook and Instagram do to recognise that regulated hunting and shooting sports has nothing to do with backyard bombmaking or the criminal use of guns? Our viewers’ suggestions range from the practical to the inspired.
All want Instagram and Facebook to acknowledge that gunshops are legal and valued members of their communities. People with gun certificates or registered firearms dealerships are, after all, judged by their local police to be the best citizens. Perhaps Facebook and Instagram should accept gun certificates or RFDs as proof of that
Our viewers want a stop to the removal or demonetisation of firearms and hunting related posts. Some suggest a logo or green dot to show that a post or a page meets Facebook’s or Instagram’s standards, especially when the individual or company behind that page meets police standards. Some say a dedicated firearms team within Facebook and Instagram could meets the needs of shooters. Some want a heavier-handed approach to the small group of antis that vexatiously flag’ hunting posts or pages. In the words of one, “Meta’s bot for patrolling their services is a complete joke. It’s OK for an underaged female to show far too much of her body provocatively but not OK for a us to post a picture of a craftsman repairing a 100-year-old shotgun”.
There is a widespread belief that Meta should undertake a root-and-branch review of its policies on hunting and shooting, recognising that different countries have different cultural values about both, and that its current one-size-fits-all policy is not serving its users well.
