ALL GUNS BLAZING

Donald Trump Jr.’s Company Met With Meta About Firearms Censorship

“This message was approved by Meta top brass,” reads a post by Field Ethos, the hunting and firearms lifestyle brand.

A hunting and firearms lifestyle media brand helmed by President Donald Trump’s eldest son said it held in-person meetings with senior executives at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta about the moderation of content related to guns and hunting.

Field Ethos—which Donald Trump Jr. founded in 2021 “as a statement against the politically correct and woke ideologies upending the outdoor media industry“—said its concerns about “freedom of speech” were “taken seriously” by the social media giant’s leaders.

“Recently, we’ve had several promising direct conversations and in-person meetings with the top brass at Meta with regard to freedom of speech and the steps being taken to ensure that companies in the firearms and hunting related industries are able to communicate and exist unencumbered on the Meta platforms,” the company wrote, in an Instagram post that was shared by Trump Jr.

Field Ethos publishes a glossy digital and print magazine that showcase a rugged, yet glamorized, view of the world where hunting and an outdoor lifestyle are core tenets of masculine identity. It also sells branded outdoor clothing and gear.

The company said firearms, ammo, and other hunting firms who have been “deplatformed” can reach out to them directly, not Meta, and that Field Ethos can assist in having their “account reviewed and restored in a timely manner.”

Field Ethos added: “This message was approved by Meta top brass.”

Meta’s community standards ban users from posting offers to “buy, sell or trade, firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, explosives or lethal enhancements” unless they are “posted by a Page, Group or Instagram profile representing legitimate brick-and-mortar entities, including retail businesses, websites, brands or government agencies.”

Minors are restricted from seeing firearms content.

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Some firearms makers and users have complained that policies have been inconsistently, and erroneously, enforced.

Gunmaker Smith & Wesson was suspended from Facebook in November as a result of what Meta said was an error, and a shooter who represented the United States at the Paralympic Games last year was shadow-banned—Instagram informed her that people who did not follow her would not be able to see her posts—for sharing an image of her air-rifle.

Field Ethos said—without specifying whether Meta executives told them as much—that the Facebook-owner is “repairing algorithm censorship” and that there will be “improvement in this area through Q1 and Q2 this year.”

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Threads, has in recent weeks announced a series of moves that were widely seen as friendly, if not outright overtures, to Trump Jr.’s father.

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Zuckerberg announced an overhaul of moderation practices last month in what he said was an effort to “get back to our roots around free expression.”

Meta said it will end its third party fact-checking program in the U.S. and was “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender.”

Zuckerberg also elevated Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican, to run Meta’s policy unit and appointed one of Trump’s closest friends, UFC CEO Dana White, to the company’s board.

When Trump was inaugurated last month, Zuckerberg was on hand along with a clique of powerful Silicon Valley CEOs that also included Amazon chair Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Field Ethos’ post was shared by several major firearms manufacturers with obvious interests in seeing lighter restrictions on gun content, including shotgun and rifle-maker O.F. Mossberg & Sons; semi-automatic rifle and pistol-maker Sturm, Ruger & Co.; and Walther Arms, the U.S. subsidiary of German firearm manufacturer Walther.

Field Ethos and Meta did not reply to requests for comment.

Francis Brennan, a member of Meta’s communications team in Washington, D.C., posted Field Ethos’ message on X in an apparent acknowledgment of the meetings.

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