Atlas Society: Instagram Removed Our Page | The Daily Caller - Eric Lieberman:
October 21, 2017 - "Libertarian nonprofit The Atlas Society (TAS) says its Instagram page, which it used to post political content and promote its work, was taken down roughly a month ago with little to no explanation....
"In an attempt to get its account back, ... The Atlas Society reached out to Instagram in early September. The organization’s CEO, Jennifer Grossman, said communications with Instagram inexplicably ended in an abrupt fashion after some confusion of the proper username for the account ensued.
"The Daily Caller News Foundation spoke to several representatives at both Instagram and Facebook, which purchased the other social media platform for $1 billion, to get to the bottom of the situation. Following a great deal of back-and-forth, including providing evidence that their account existed, an Instagram official told TheDCNF that TAS’s account was deleted by an administrator of the official '@atlassociety' account some time around three years ago.
"Utterly perplexed by the information relayed to them, Grossman and her small staff provided TheDCNF with files that prove the account existed within the past three years.... TheDCNF then transferred the evidence to an Instagram employee, who has said multiple times after several inquiries that they plan on investigating, and subsequently responding.
"TAS’s Instagram account at time of publication is still down and unavailable....
"Grossman said she is ready to take whatever means necessary to get her Instagram account back, including legal recourse. 'If we can’t get answers by engaging in the routes that Instagram itself advertises as being the recourse for consumers, then we will try to get answers through the discovery process,' she said. 'We’ve suffered significant economic damage by being denied access to the area where we do business. We’re in the idea business, and this is our marketplace.'
"Prior to leading TAS, Grossman ... worked as education policy director for the libertarian-leaning think tank Cato Institute and a presidential speechwriter in the White House during the George H.W. Bush administration. She also served as the senior vice president for Dole Food Company, a powerful agriculture corporation, for roughly 10 years.
"'I’m a business person, I spent most of my career in companies where you take your products to market — via roads, rivers, rails, etc. Well, Instagram is the road by which we were conveying our products — memes that communicated our particular (and granted, not always popular) point of view,' she explained. 'Now we’re denied access to that road — and therefore to our consumers.'"
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/21/exclusive-libertarian-org-ready-to-sue-instagram-for-allegedly-removing-its-account/
'via Blog this'
October 21, 2017 - "Libertarian nonprofit The Atlas Society (TAS) says its Instagram page, which it used to post political content and promote its work, was taken down roughly a month ago with little to no explanation....
"In an attempt to get its account back, ... The Atlas Society reached out to Instagram in early September. The organization’s CEO, Jennifer Grossman, said communications with Instagram inexplicably ended in an abrupt fashion after some confusion of the proper username for the account ensued.
"The Daily Caller News Foundation spoke to several representatives at both Instagram and Facebook, which purchased the other social media platform for $1 billion, to get to the bottom of the situation. Following a great deal of back-and-forth, including providing evidence that their account existed, an Instagram official told TheDCNF that TAS’s account was deleted by an administrator of the official '@atlassociety' account some time around three years ago.
"Utterly perplexed by the information relayed to them, Grossman and her small staff provided TheDCNF with files that prove the account existed within the past three years.... TheDCNF then transferred the evidence to an Instagram employee, who has said multiple times after several inquiries that they plan on investigating, and subsequently responding.
"TAS’s Instagram account at time of publication is still down and unavailable....
"Grossman said she is ready to take whatever means necessary to get her Instagram account back, including legal recourse. 'If we can’t get answers by engaging in the routes that Instagram itself advertises as being the recourse for consumers, then we will try to get answers through the discovery process,' she said. 'We’ve suffered significant economic damage by being denied access to the area where we do business. We’re in the idea business, and this is our marketplace.'
"Prior to leading TAS, Grossman ... worked as education policy director for the libertarian-leaning think tank Cato Institute and a presidential speechwriter in the White House during the George H.W. Bush administration. She also served as the senior vice president for Dole Food Company, a powerful agriculture corporation, for roughly 10 years.
"'I’m a business person, I spent most of my career in companies where you take your products to market — via roads, rivers, rails, etc. Well, Instagram is the road by which we were conveying our products — memes that communicated our particular (and granted, not always popular) point of view,' she explained. 'Now we’re denied access to that road — and therefore to our consumers.'"
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/21/exclusive-libertarian-org-ready-to-sue-instagram-for-allegedly-removing-its-account/
'via Blog this'
I feel great sympathy for TAS, and Jennifer Grossman, but I don't know why she/they are wasting their time dealing with these censorious assholes at Instagram (or Facebook, either, for that matter). The explanation you've reported is too ludicrous for words - nobody, not even at Facebook, is that incompetent - and this is obviously part of their ongoing attempts, as reported by many others recently, to deny any of their customers whose views they don't like the ability to communicate on social media. There are alternatives out there run by people who don't feel themselves entitled to decide what views their users are allowed to have, and I hope they get themselves up and running on one or more of them soon. In the meanwhile, as is usual with these things, these left-wing, regressive (what they are, not what they claim...) actions have backfired on them, at least with me. I haven't taken the opportunity to look at supporting The Atlas Foundation amongst all the libertarian groups out there, BUT I WILL NOW.
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