Yvette D’Ath fails to get Jarrod Bleijie banned from Twitter

The Health Minister has responded to accusations she was trying to silence the Opposition when she contacted social media giant Twitter to ban a frontbencher for “dangerous” Covid-19 posts.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath has denied she was trying to silence the Opposition when she asked Twitter to ban frontbencher Jarrod Bleijie.

And she said she accepts Twitter’s determination that it would not remove the Kawana MP or his tweets after he referred to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her deputy Steven Miles as anti-vaxxers.

The Courier-Mail on Monday revealed the social media giant had knocked back a request from the Minister who claimed Mr Bleijie had spread misinformation that undermined Queensland’s vaccine rollout on his account.

Ms D’Ath said she accepted the ruling.

“I didn’t play cheap politics on social media, I wrote because I was concerned that there was misinformation, misleading information out there from a particular member of the opposition, and I wanted Twitter’s ruling on that,” she said.

“How you can say that I’m trying to silence the entire opposition when I wrote in relation to one individual - I think that’s a little bit of a reach from the opposition but of course I accept the ruling that they believe that it was an allegation as opposed to misinformation.

“And it is what it is, the decision’s been made.”

Mr Bleijie accused Ms D’Ath of trying to silence the opposition after he learnt she had asked Twitter to review his tweets and either remove them or ban him completely.

Ms D’Ath personally wrote to Twitter in August about Mr Bleijie, with RTI documents obtained by The Courier-Mail revealing the Minister asked Twitter to either remove the tweets or ban the Kawana MP altogether.

The documents claimed he was spreading misinformation about senior members of government and “undermining not only public confidence in the vaccine, but the Queensland Government’s rollout of the vaccine, which could ultimately lead to vaccine hesitancy and harm to Queenslanders”.

Jarrod Bleijie

Yvette D'Ath

“I therefore request that Twitter review Mr Bleijie’s contribution to Twitter in respect to the tweets and either remove them or ban Mr Bleijie from the Twitter platform for spreading false and misleading information about this important public health issue,” she wrote.

While he welcomed Twitter’s decision, Mr Bleijie slammed the Minister whom he said should “concentrate her priorities on Queensland Health which is in crisis under her watch instead of wasting everyone’s time with silly pathetic Twitter complaints and trying to silence the Opposition”.

“The concerns I raised in my tweets about the Premier’s attack on AstraZeneca vaccine have now shown to have had a huge effect on vaccine hesitancy in Queensland,” he said.

The Minister cited several of Mr Bleijie’s tweets in her letter, including:

.@YvetteDAth maybe vaccine hesitancy in Qld started when Chief Health Officer Dr Young told young people they have more chance of dying from the AZ vaccine than Covid-19! Doesn't help that we have an anti-vaxxer Premier @AnnastaciaMP either. #qldpol

— Jarrod Bleijie (@JarrodBleijieMP) August 4, 2021

.@StevenJMiles you missed one....VACCINES! You must be an anti-vaxxer like your boss @AnnastaciaMP#qldpolpic.twitter.com/uVCkQLrBBq

— Jarrod Bleijie (@JarrodBleijieMP) July 3, 2021

Mr Bleijie, who is the Manager of Opposition Business, took aim at the Premier earlier this year after she received Pfizer weeks after AstraZeneca became available to her age group.

Ms Palaszczuk attributed the delay to having required a tetanus booster after her dog bit her.

Twitter’s director of public policy for Australia and New Zealand Kara Hinesley wrote that while Mr Bleijie’s tweets might be “distasteful”, the contents were considered to be allegations instead of misinformation.

“When reviewing the tweets in question that were posted by Mr Jarrod Bleijie … Twitter’s teams undertook a rigorous review of the content in question against the Twitter rules and terms of service,” she wrote in a letter to Ms D’Ath.

“The tweets flagged were determined to not violate Twitter’s Covid-19 misleading information policy.

“While the account’s tweets may be distasteful, the accusations contained in Mr Bleijie’s tweets have been determined to be allegations instead of misinformation under our relevant policies.

“At this stage, allegations are not actionable under our rules as Twitter cannot arbitrate or validate such claims.”