Elaine Thompson-Herah says Instagram blocked her for posting videos of her historic double-double

Elaine Thompson-Herah, the fastest woman in the world with a fresh Olympic record, was temporarily blocked from Instagram on Tuesday. Thompson-Herah said she lost access to the app after posting videos of her gold medal-winning 100-meter and 200-meter races. It was a repeat “double-double” for the Jamaican runner, adding to 2016 Rio golds in each discipline. She is the first woman to defend both titles at once. But all that didn’t stop Instagram from taking it easy on her for copyright infringement. Thompson-Herah shared videos of her competitions with her 310,000 followers. Her story was stacked with shots from friends and family of the TV airing her race alongside congratulatory notes to her. About seven hours after posting on Twitter of her ban, she wrote on her Instagram story, “my block is cleared” with smiling emojis. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) owns the Olympics and associated intellectual property, not individual athletes, and has strict rules on how it’s used. Instagram does not allow users to post content violating someone else’s intellectual property rights, and has eyes out for the big violations like during the Olympics. Athletes have had more success showing glimpses of life behind the scenes rather than footage of the actual events…
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