As Australia prepares to begin the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, state health departments, including SA Health and Queensland Health, were unable to post.

St Vincent’s Health in Melbourne said it was “extremely concerning” its Facebook page had been blocked “during a pandemic and on the eve of crucial Covid vaccine distribution”.

Health minister Greg Hunt said he was “profoundly shocked” that health organisations, including Bowel Cancer Australia and the Kids Cancer Project had been affected.

“The fact that the kids cancer project could be affected, is, frankly a disgrace. Facebook should fix it and they should address that immediately,” Hunt told reporters.

The shadow health minister, Mark Butler, said it was “completely irresponsible” behaviour by Facebook, and the pages needed to be restored.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic,” he tweeted. “Australians need to hear from credible voices in the vaccine rollout. This is completely irresponsible from Facebook. The Morrison government needs to fix this today.”

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said the federal government needed to “sort it out.”

“It needs to be fixed up and it needs to be fixed up today.”

The Western Australian Department of Fire and Emergency Services’s page was also stripped of content.

A number of Australian Capital Territory government pages were also caught up in Facebook’s action.

By midday on Thursday, some pages had been restored including those run by BoM and the state health departments.

Just weeks out from the Western Australian election, the state’s opposition leader, Zak Kirkup, also was blocked, while incumbent premier Mark McGowan’s page remained unaffected.

1800 Respect, Mission Australia, Hobart Women’s Shelter, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Australian Wildlife Conservancy and a number of other charities were also blocked on Thursday

clutchcargo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:34 pm Put your hands up those that think this is a great outcome to curb F**book's power..

clutchcargo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:34 pm Put your hands up those that think this is a great outcome to curb F**book's power..

nerdlinger wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:45 pm

clutchcargo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:34 pm Put your hands up those that think this is a great outcome to curb F**book's power..

I’m all for curbing FB and I think it is a cancer, but as far as I can tell this regulation has a huge potential to backfire. Reputable outlets will inevitable ask for better terms than fake grassroots movements and partisan outlets, which in turn will incentivise FB to show an even higher ratio of fictional bullshit to actual news.
I fear this may once again be a case of old men who can’t work a laptop trying to regulate something they barely understand and getting it horribly wrong - or for the more conspiracy theory minded an attempt by politicians to reduce the amount of proper journalism on Facebook.