The shooting sports fraternity went into a tizzy on Wednesday after it found that the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) page on social networking site ‘Facebook’ had been deleted.
Shooters from across the world rely for updates from ISSF on its Facebook page which was created on 14th January 2010.
Reportedly, Facebook has deleted the ISSF page without giving any reason or warning to the world shooting body.
The ISSF, which has its headquarters in Munich, said in a statement on its website: “An unpleasant situation happened yesterday, and Facebook has deleted the ISSF page from the social network without reason or warning. At the moment, we are looking into what happened and stay with you on the official website, Instagram and Twitter”.
The ISSF had a verified page and had followers running into tens of thousands. The international shooting body has asked for the entire shooting fraternity to come together and show solidarity in its bid to get Facebook to reverse its decision.
“We kindly ask you to support us…please use the hashtag #unblock_ISSF_facebook for our support,” the ISSF said in a statement.
Though it is not known why Facebook has deleted a verified ISSF account, one of the reasons could be because the social networking site has a very stringent policy on firearms, which as per their regulations, is against their community standards. Facebook also has a policy, which prohibits “advertisements promoting the brandishing of firearms”.
