Facebook on Thursday permanently removed the page of Australian celebrity chef Pete Evans, in its latest move to contain the spread of fake news surrounding Covid-19.
Evans, who was a judge on prime time Australian cooking show My Kitchen Rules between 2010 and 2020, was accused of repeatedly spreading baseless claims about the coronavirus on his page with 1.5 million followers, calling it a hoax.
The celebrity chef also urged people to not get tested or vaccinate themselves against the novel virus that has claimed more than 1.7 million lives globally.
“We don’t allow anyone to share misinformation about Covid-19 that could lead to imminent physical harm or (about) Covid-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts,” Facebook Inc was quoted as saying by Reuters news wire agency.
“We have clear policies against this type of content and we’ve removed Chef Pete Evans’ Facebook Page for repeated violations of these policies.”
The action from the social media giant comes after it had announced on 4 December that it would be stepping up the effort to remove false claims about vaccines including misinformation about safety, efficacy, ingredients and side effects.
The social media giant, however, did not explain why it had allowed Evans to continue with his Instagram page, which has more than 278,000 followers.
Responding to the action by Facebook, Evans wrote on Instagram that he was very glad to be one of the catalysts for a conversation about such important topic (as) freedom of speech.
In an “apology” to Facebook, Evans also posted a satirical video on his Instagram page where he denounced the platform for the ban and said that he “unfortunately made a huge mistake of exercising free speech and trying to help people better their lives".
“I now realise both of these things are in direct violations of your community guidelines,” he said, and went on to baselessly call the newly developed coronavirus vaccines a “needle full of an experimental cocktail of a DNA-altering substance”.
