18 February 2021
Please attribute the following to Executive Director of Strategic Communications Branch Robert Hoge:
Queensland Health is a trusted source of credible information.
Facebook isn’t the only way we reach people but it’s an significant one. We are working urgently this morning to restore public access to our content.
We are in the process of rolling out the first phase of our COVID-19 vaccine program and social media is a key tool with which to communicate this information.
The decision to block access to our content could hinder our ability to communicate to high-risk groups.
We have really significant reach through our website, Twitter and LinkedIn. We encourage Queenslanders who need information to check out our website.
It is up to date with all relevant COVID-19 cases and relevant COVID-19 information.
I applaud Facebook for taking action against anti-vaxxers, Pete Evans and other peddlers of harmful views and conspiracies, however they got this one wrong.
While our social media platforms have a better reach than many news services, and are more reliable, we are in fact not a news service. Facebook should fix this urgently.
Our website is at www.health.qld.gov.au.
We are also on Twitter (@qldhealthnews); and LinkedIn (Queensland Health).
Background:
We have grown our Facebook audience to almost more than 600,000 followers over the past five years.
At any given time of the year, we use social media to alert Queenslanders to emergencies ranging from COVID-19, influenza and other infectious disease outbreaks to health advice relating to bushfire smoke, heatwaves, and storms and flooding.
Every day, we engage Queenslanders on a host of timely health matters including nutrition, physical activity, mental health and general wellbeing.
In January 2021 alone our content was seen 65,680,207 times, received 6,448,305 engagements and had 83,867 clicks.
In 2020, on Facebook:
- Our content was seen over 450 million (impressions)
- Our content received over 32 million engagements
- Our links within posts were clicked on 1.7 million times
To put this into perspective this means on average, during 2020 our content gained 1.2 million impressions, received 89,000 engagements and was clicked on 4,660 times every day of the year.
ENDS