Australian politician, Craig Kelly Faces Permanent Ban On Facebook For Spreading Covid-19 Misinformation
Posting something on Facebook? Be clear with the guidelines otherwise get ready to be banned from the platform. The spread of Covid-19 has been on the rise after the second wave has hit some countries hard. But some people have been spreading false information regarding the pandemic. Craig Kelly, the Liberal MP for Hughes in south-eastern Sydney, posted a list of claims regarding the country’s new social Covid norms. The post was quickly deleted by Facebook after the following criticism from other users for misleading information. These posts often lead to serious actions among them and might lead to some social outrage too.
Mr. Kelly, the controversial anti-vaccination campaigner who claims vaccines cause autism, was banned in February from posting on Facebook after repeatedly promoting unproven treatments and anti-vaccine theories on his official page with more than 100,000 followers. These posts always bring the dignity and the position of these officials under question. The Facebook officials said in a meeting that “Facebook has permanently deleted Australian Conservative commentator Mark Latham’s official page for his ongoing failure to comply with its misinformation policies”. They have also added that we won’t be talking on this topic for a long now and the final decision has been made.
“The safety of your family is our top priority. We remove content that spreads misinformation about COVID-19 or these vaccines, We consider this type of information misleading, and want to make sure people see accurate facts. We have removed Mr. Kelly’s page for repeated violations of our policy” a Facebook spokeswoman said.
“I am outraged that a company like Facebook would close down a page because it doesn’t like something that one of its users posts, which doesn’t even fall into the highly disputed category of hate speech,” said Mr. Kelly. These words of Mr. Kelly prove that he is outraged and in anger with the Facebook policies. He has made a statement that the company has no right to do this.
Leaders have many platforms to be heard on. But there are limits. The ban applies only to his official Facebook page and does not extend to his Instagram or personal Facebook account. We know it can be frustrating to have the contents of your Page removed. But Facebook’s policies will prevent you from creating a new Page that mirrors your previous activity. Mr. Kelly may no longer hold the seat of Hughes, but he has a strong following among people close to him who support his work in politics and his efforts to have Australia’s laws brought into line with the Bible.
I’m going to test how to use this page on Facebook to share COVID news. I know you’re interested in COVID, so I’m excited to see if anyone will read it – and even more exciting would be if our two communities joined together!
The defection of the Liberal MP to the crossbench came after a widely publicized clash with Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, in which she accused him of spreading “crazy conspiracy theories”. Now let’s see what happens in the future if Kelly gets his Facebook page back.
