Instagram bans former celebrity chef Pete Evans

Celebrity chef Pete Evans has had his Instagram account permanently banned after the chef continuously shared misinformation in relation to coronavirus and vaccines. 

Facebook, who own Instagram, confirmed that Mr Evan’s account, that had hundreds of thousands of followers, had been deleted on Wednesday.

"We removed Pete Evans's account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines," said the company in a statement. 

"We don't allow anyone to share misinformation about COVID-19 that could lead to imminent physical harm or about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts."

In December, Mr Evan’s Facebook page was removed, but this didn’t stop him from spreading his false information on Instagram. 

He regularly used social media to throw doubt over official information about COVID-19, vaccines. 

In April, his company was fined over $25,000 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for promoting a device called s “BioCharger” that he claimed could be used in relation to coronavirus, with the TGA stating the claim had "no apparent foundation". 

Last week, Facebook updated its Covid-19 and vaccine misinformation policies promising to crackdown on false claims. 

After consulting with health groups such as the World Health Organization, they expanded their list to include certain claims that won’t be tolerated such as ‘it is safer to get COVID than the vaccine’, or that the ‘vaccine can cause autism’.

Irit Jackson, 18^th February 2021