Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a personal explanation.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do. It involves the member for Hughes.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought it was implied. On Wednesday 20 October, the member for Hughes made a personal explanation stating that I had falsely asserted that he had been 'banned from Facebook for spreading COVID-19 misinformation'. There are two misrepresentations in this statement. Firstly, in a recent letter to me from Facebook, the company told me:

As a matter of public record, under our harmful health misinformation policy, we have removed the Facebook and Instagram accounts representing Mr Craig Kelly MP for repeated violations of our community standards.

The second misrepresentation in the member for Hughes's statement is that, despite his own Facebook page being banned, the member for Hughes remains active on Facebook, authorising all of the content on the United Australia Facebook page and featuring in the overwhelming majority of the videos on that page.

Facebook should proactively and transparently apply its community standards and stop the member for Hughes from continuing to spread medical misinformation about COVID-19 during this pandemic.