Extract from The Guardiian
Conservative backbenchers expert at fuelling the Facebook hum, outdo senior government ministers, analysis shows
Federal Liberal backbenchers Craig Kelly and George Christensen, who have accused social media companies of censoring conservatives, are among the most influential Australian MPs on Facebook, an analysis suggests.
Kelly and Christensen have railed against social media bans on the US president, Donald Trump, in the wake of the riot on the US Capitol.
“THE PURGE HAS COMMENCED,” Kelly posted on Facebook on Sunday about what he perceived as escalating censorship of conservatives on social media.
The post had the seventh highest level of interactions with the public among posts by Australian MPs and senators on Facebook in the past seven days, with 5,900 reactions, 4,000 comments, and 1,800 shares.
Kelly and Christensen have amassed more than 86,000 and 70,000 followers respectively on their Facebook pages.
While that is less than some of their colleagues, such as the prime minister who has several hundreds of thousands of followers according to social media tool CrowdTangle, the government backbenchers’ posts regularly achieve more likes and shares.
In the past week alone, the two MPs had four of the top 25 performing posts among Australian government MPs in lists compiled by CrowdTangle.
While most MPs generally confine their social media presence to Australian issues, electorate matters or government announcements, Kelly and Christensen share a wide variety of material related to their own interests. They have regularly used the platform to question climate science and official information on Covid-19, with much of the focus in the past week on the events in the US.
Kelly’s post where he referred to the US Capitol insurgents as a “small group of protestors” and linked to a thoroughly-debunked Washington Times post claiming an antifa link to the riots was the second most popular post by an Australian MP in the past seven days.
It was second only to a post about the Spirit of Tasmania ferry being free for cars shared by Tasmanian independent senator Jacqui Lambie, who has 386,000 followers.
Christensen has started a petition calling on the communications minister, Paul Fletcher, to urgently introduce legislation to stop tech companies from censoring or removing any content that is “lawful”. Fletcher said on Monday the government did not intend to pursue such legislation.
Kelly told Guardian Australia he believed his posts performed better because others were being censored by Facebook, and he believed Facebook gave more leeway to members of parliament for what they could post.
“Because there might be like a dearth of conservative views on Facebook [that] might be one of the reasons why my page gets so much traffic,” he said.
He said people should be free to post what they want on social media so long as it isn’t defamatory or an explicit incitement to violence.
Social media companies ruled Trump’s posts did encourage violence but Kelly said he did not believe that because the outgoing president didn’t tell rioters to “burn down buildings”.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, last week declined to condemn Christensen for posting misinformation on his Facebook page about the US election, stating there was freedom of speech in Australia.
The lack of vocal rebuttal of Kelly and Christensen’s Facebook content among government ministers might indicate a tacit endorsement of those posts – a way to slow the leak of voters from the Liberal and National parties to One Nation and other far-right parties.
The CrowdTangle data shows that far from being a place where rightwing speech is censored, seven of the top 25 posts from Australian federal politicians were from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s page, making Facebook a valuable platform for politicians like Kelly and Christensen trying to increase their profile.
However, the free run may end. Some senior Liberals have taken issue with criticism, from Kelly in particular, of the government’s health strategy on Covid-19.
Kelly also faces an uphill battle in his preselection in his safe seat of Hughes, in Sydney’s south, expected to be decided later this year.
The Hughes conference is controlled by moderates who had the numbers last time to remove him. However Kelly survived after a last-minute intervention by Morrison in his preselection.
But both locals and head office say Kelly has run out of support from his own faction and from the Liberal head office.
“There is no appetite from the right wing or the moderates to allow this to continue,” a senior Liberal from the Sutherland Shire said. Another Liberal in head office agreed.
“I don’t think the right are marshalling, but they are not going to help him either,” they said.
Some believe that Kelly is burnishing his credentials as a climate denier and maverick on Covid-19 treatments as part of a deliberate strategy for a career as a sensationalist rightwing commentator when his political career is over.
He already has a semi-regular gig on Sky News as a commentator. Alternatively there are fears he may run as an independent either in the Senate or Hughes, which the Liberals hold by just 8%.
“He likes to tell people he’s got a bigger profile on Facebook than the prime minister,” the senior Liberal said. “I think we will see him get more extreme in his views as the election draws closer.”
Kelly said he would continue to speak out about the government’s response to Covid-19, on Facebook in particular, and would continue to share articles on his page.
“I believe that we have got a lot of things wrong, absolutely wrong,” he said.
Guardian Australia has sought comment from Christensen.
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