Facebook has said that it unintentionally blocked the Jamaican superstar and Olympics gold medallist Elaine Thompson-Herah from Instagram.
Sprinter Thompson-Herah is the flash of women sprinters around the globe. The fastest woman in the world took to Twitter to record her protest. The platform stopped her from posting videos because, allegedly, she did not own the rights to the videos.
Facebook was quick to respond to the matter and said that the suspension of her account was a mistake. After which, her access to the account was quickly restored.
The athlete also declared later on using the same platform that her block has been lifted.
After her tweet that she had been blocked, the platform had to sustain a severe backlash. Messages from people of almost all walks of life flew in, including US singer-songwriter Anita Baker.
“Athletes, Artists, Creatives, have rights to their own image & likeness,” the singer wrote.
Her post was in accordance with the Olympic Committee’s social and digital media guidelines. As a result, Olympic athletes can post the videos from the mega event on their social media accounts but with some restrictions.
“Rights Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) have the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic Games,” the IOC said. “This includes distribution on social media, where athletes are invited to share the content provided by the RHBs on their accounts but cannot post-competition content natively. Should that occur, the removal of such content from social media platforms happens automatically.”
The video under scrutiny was of the final 100 meters race that displayed Thompson-Herah in all her glory. The spectacle is enough for understanding that why she is the fastest woman in the world. In her big to win the gold medal for her nation, she broke Florence Griffith Joyner’s Olympic record.
