Instagram isn’t playing any games when it comes to Olympic coverage.
The Guardian reports that the social media platform recently blocked Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah following her posts celebrating her recent wins at the Tokyo Olympics.
Thompson-Herah took to Instagram to post videos of her family celebrating the gold medals she won during the 100m and 200m races. The Olympian also shared some TV footage of the races.
It wasn’t long after her posts that she realized that her access to the app had been revoked.
Due to The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) ownership of the intellectual property rights for the Games, they are very strict about the content that is shared.
Broadcast rights for the 2018 Winter Games and the 2020 Summer Games alone, brought in $4 billion for the organization so they’ve doubled down on efforts to keep the content under a tight wrap.
According to the IOC, “Rights Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) have the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic Games.
“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 IOC tells Reuters.
“I was blocked on Instagram for posting the races of the Olympics because I did not own the right to do so,” shared 29-year-old Thompson-Herah in a post on Twitter. “So see ya’ll in 2 days.”
https://twitter.com/FastElaine/status/1422625283534901253?s=20
The two days references the next Olympic competition that she is set to make an appearance in. It will be her chance to win her third gold medal during the Tokyo games in the 4x100m.
Just several hours following her tweet, Thompson-Herah’s access to Instagram was restored.
While her Instagram access may have been restored, the IOC is not playing around when it comes to enforcing its intellectual property in an effort to redistribute as much money as possible back into the sport.
“The income from the sales of the broadcasting rights is an important element in the financing of the Olympic movement and helps building the Olympic stage on which athletes can shine,” continued the organization.
This isn’t Thompson-Herah’s first rodeo at an Olympic Game. The Jamaican native scored gold during the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 100m and 200m races.