UPDATE 20 Feb 2020: FC Barcelona, Red Points and Instagram have overturned the decision and have reinstated the Instagram account. Thank you all for your support!
Dear friends of BOOTHYPE,
It pains us to say this but our Instagram account has been wrongfully and unfairly disabled by Facebook for “copyright infringement”. 2 of our Instagram posts were reported by FC Barcelona, via the use of an automated AI service, Red Points, to have infringed their trademark properties.
The 2 posts in question:
These photos were taken by us and were in line with community standards and were meant to connect with fans of football jerseys and fans of FC Barcelona. While we understand that an AI service works on a pre-determined set of parameters, it is clear that there was not a human eye involved when making the decision to have the account taken down.
It’s such a shame that close to 2 years of our work on Instagram would be for nothing. We do have a modest (9k followers and growing), but highly engaged community that have loved our content and loved interacting with our team due to our shared love for football gear.
With millions of content on social media posting about FC Barcelona, it seems draconian to have the account and community punished in such a manner, without even being given a chance to remove the posts in question – something we are always open to do.
In the meantime, we will be working hard to appeal with Facebook and FC Barcelona on overturning this decision and ensuring our account is back online though our first attempts have not been successful.
Content on BOOTHYPE.com will still run as per normal and we will do our best to get our Instagram back online. We appreciate all forms of help and if you have any to spare, please contact us here.
Thank you,
The BOOTHYPE Team
