Instagram suspended a Gold Star mother after she criticized Biden

A mistake, apparently.

Facebook temporarily deleted the Instagram account of a Gold Star mother after she posted a note criticizing President Joe Biden’s disastrous mishandling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Her Instagram account "was incorrectly deleted and we have since restored it,” a Facebook spokesperson told me, adding that the mother's viral criticism of Biden “was not removed” from Facebook.

Shana Chappell’s son, 20-year-old U.S. Marine Kareem Nikoui, was among those killed last week in a terrorist attack outside the international airport in Kabul.

Chappell and other new Gold Star parents met this weekend with Biden. By all accounts, the meetings went poorly. The president was reportedly sharp with the parents of some of the 13 fallen servicemen. He was also self-absorbed, droning on about his own son, Beau, a JAG who died of natural causes. Following her own conversation with Biden, Chappell published a lengthy note on Facebook excoriating the president.

“President Joe Biden [this message] is for you!” she wrote Monday. “I know my face is etched into your brain! I was able to look you straight in the eyes yesterday and have words with you. After I lay my son to rest you will be seeing me again! Remember I am the one who stood 5 inches from your face and was letting you know I would never get to hug my son again, hear his laugh and then you tried to interrupt me and give me your own sob story and I had to tell you ‘that this isn’t about you so don’t make it about you!!!’”

She added, “[You] then rolled your f***ing eyes in your head like you were annoyed with me and I let you know that the only reason I was talking to you was out of respect for my son and that was the only reason why ... [you] turned to walk away and I let you know my son's blood was on your hands and you threw your hand up behind you as you walked away from me like you were saying ‘OK, whatever!'”

The note continues:

You are not the president of the United States of America Biden!!!! Cheating isn’t winning!!! You are no leader of any kind! You are a weak human being and a traitor!!!! You turned your back on my son, on all of our [heroes]!!! you are leaving the White House one way or another because you do not belong there! MY SONS BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!! All 13 of them, their blood is on your hands!!!! If my president Trump was in his rightful seat then my son and the other [heroes] would still be alive!!!! You will be seeing me again very soon!!! [By the way] as my son and the rest of our fallen [heroes] were being taken off the plane yesterday I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch???? You are nobody special Biden!!! America Hates you!!!!!

Not long after Chappell published her post, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, deleted her account. She suspects the suspension was a direct result of what she said on Facebook.

“It seems Instagram took it upon themselves to delete my account because I am assuming it was because I gained so many followers over my sons death due to Biden’s negligence, ignorance and him being a traitor!” Chappell said Monday. “Funny how these leftist one sided pieces of crap don’t want the truth to come out! … You deleted my account because my sons blood is on Biden’s hands!”

It’s worth noting that the last things she posted to Instagram before her account was temporarily deleted were in memoriam messages to her son, one of which reads, in part:

I am still in shock right now. I felt my soul leave my body as I was screaming that it can’t be true! No mother, no parent should ever have to hear that their child is gone, that their child was one of the Marines killed today!!! I had to hear it, I had to hear it! This is my baby! This is my Hero!!!! I will never get to hug him again and my heart is ripped out of my chest! No parent should have to have someone come to their home to tell them their child is never coming home again!!!! Why would God do this to me??? Why would he take my son???? This can’t be real!

On Facebook, Chappell alleges she was silenced on Instagram because she dared criticize the president, saying, “Isn’t that cute how the blood of my son is on Biden’s hands and they choose to silence me?”

Another plausible theory for the temporary suspension is that left-wing trolls spelunked through Chappell’s Instagram posts after her note to Biden went viral and flagged content that may violate Instagram’s terms of service , which take a hard line on content questioning the efficacy of cloth masks in preventing the spread of the coronavirus and the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Chappell had previously questioned both.

But Chappell is convinced her Facebook note criticizing Biden is what earned her a suspension from Instagram, and it's pretty hard to argue that it's just a coincidence.

“This is the post that made Instagram disable my account,” she said on Facebook on Monday, sharing her lengthy response to her meeting with the president. “As soon as I posted about what happened to my son, Instagram started pulling up my posts from months ago and sending me notifications that if I kept posting stuff like that they would disable my account! Posts from months ago! But the real reason they disabled my account is because of this post!”

Chappell’s Instagram account, which was deleted around Aug. 30, has since been reinstated.

“The IG account was removed in error,” a Facebook spokesperson told me. “We do make mistakes, yes.”

The spokesperson added, “We express our deepest condolences to Ms. Chappell and her family. Her tribute to her heroic son does not violate any of our policies."