Vaccine ads pulled from Facebook as government opts for traditional media

A major advertising campaign to ease public concerns around vaccinations has been pulled from Facebook.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says his department will no longer use paid Facebook posts to give its vaccination campaign greater prominence in user feeds. Picture: AFP

A major advertising campaign to ease public concerns around coronavirus vaccinations has been pulled from Facebook amid the widening fallout over the government’s battle with the social media giant.

Health Minister Greg Hunt ­revealed on Sunday his department would no longer use paid Facebook posts to give its vaccination campaign greater prominence in users’ feeds, relying instead on other platforms and traditional media.

The move follows Scott Morrison’s decision on Friday to halt his paid Facebook posts, setting in motion what is expected to ­become a whole-of-government advertising shift away from the platform. Federal cabinet will consider a formal Facebook advertising ban if the platform continues to refuse to pay Australian media organisations to use their news content.

The Department of Health campaign features more than a dozen animations offering information on the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, and providing reassurance on Australia’s process for approving therapeutic goods.

The Prime Minister said his government would use “all the communication mechanisms” available to it, including Facebook, to inform the public about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. But Mr Hunt said his department’s use of Facebook would be restricted to free social media posts.

As the platform continued to block real news while allowing posts spruiking anti-vaccination protests, Mr Hunt said there would be no more Facebook ­advertising by his department “on my watch” until the dispute was resolved.

“We will continue to provide information, but in the immediate future we will not do additional (Facebook) advertising,” he said.

The move comes ahead of Monday’s scheduled start of Senate debate on the government’s mandatory news media bargaining code, which is at the centre of the dispute. The bill will almost certainly pass with bipartisan support.

The federal government spent about $42m on digital advertising in 2019-20, according to Department of Finance figures. The Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology calculated this included about $20m in paid Facebook posts.

Assistant Minister for the Public Service Ben Morton said the cabinet’s service delivery and co-ordination committee kept an ongoing watch on the implementation of government advertising campaigns. “The government is reviewing the impact of these changes across all its campaigns and will ensure that the most effective communications channels are used to communicate important messages to the target audience,” he said.  “We all have seen the changes Facebook have made and how they have affected not just important government information, but also other important community information.”

In a surprise move on Thursday, Facebook switched off domestic news feeds — along with public health, weather, charity and community pages — for Australian users of the service.

Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles said Facebook’s behaviour was “very regrettable”. “But at the end of the day it’s also a matter for the government to deliver its code and make that code workable,” he said. “We obviously want these significant tech platforms to continue to operate in Australia, but we need to have a workable code that delivers a model which sees the proper funding of news in this country and ultimately that‘s actually for the government to deliver.”