CrossFit suspends Facebook, Instagram accounts

CrossFit has suspended all activity on its official Instagram and Facebook accounts over privacy concerns, the fitness company announced this weekend.

In a statement, CrossFit said it based its decision on Facebook’s deletion of a user group with 1.65 million members for CrossFit’s Banting7DayMealPlan. Facebook owns Instagram.

{mosads}The platform has since reinstated the group but never provided any explanation for the deletion, and the episode “should give any serious person reason to pause,” CrossFit said in its announcement.

“Facebook and its properties host and oversee a significant share of the marketplace of public thought,” CrossFit’s statement reads. “To millions of individuals and communities across the world, Facebook and its properties remain the platforms where ideas and information are exchanged.

“Facebook thus serves as a de facto authority over the public square, arbitrating a worldwide exchange of information as well as overseeing the security of the individuals and communities who entrust their ideas, work, and private data to this platform. This mandates a certain responsibility and assurance of good faith, transparency, and due process,” it said.

CrossFit said its accounts will remain dormant while it investigates the deletion and other complaints about Facebook.

CrossFit also accuses Facebook of targeting users who have “identified the corrupted nutritional science responsible for unchecked global chronic disease.”

“In this case, the approved perspective has resulted in the deaths of millions through preventable diseases. Facebook is thus complicit in the global chronic disease crisis,” the statement reads.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.