Senator Gerard Rennick’s Facebook engagement increases after frequent posts about COVID vaccines, lockdowns
Liberal Senator Gerard Rennick has quickly become the federal parliamentarian with the busiest Facebook page thanks to his frequent posts about vaccines and COVID-19 lockdowns, which some experts have called dangerous.
More interactions are now being recorded on his posts than even those on the pages of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese.
The Queensland senator, who until recently was unknown, has become a significant figure in parliament this week after declaring he would withhold its vote on legislation if the federal government does not intervene in the state government’s workplace vaccination mandates, which he opposes.
Facebook data suggests the problem has for some time been breeding ground for Senator Rennick to increase his presence on the social media platform.
This year, ABC has tracked posts from federal lawmakers and collected data showing how many times Facebook users have interacted with each post before noon on the day after it was published.
In the last two months, Senator Rennick’s Facebook involvement has grown particularly rapidly.
The rise in engagement means his side suddenly attracts more interactions every day than the leaders of both major parties.
Both leaders have, on average, fewer than 20,000 interactions on their Facebook pages a day over a two-week period, but Senator Rennick’s page currently occupies more than 30,000.
Facebook’s data does not reveal how many people have seen each posting, as the company does not publish that information. On the other hand, it counts the number of comments, shares and reactions to posts.
It is also unclear where the users interacting with his post are, or whether a particular MP has a large following outside Australia.
Rennick’s rapid audience growth
Looking at the activity on the Prime Minister’s side, Senator Rennick’s relatively higher user engagement is due in part to the fact that he posts more often than Scott Morrison, with around 62 speeches since the beginning of the month to Mr Morrison’s 21.
This month, the senator ranks third in parliament for the average number of interactions per session. post, after Pauline Hanson and the Prime Minister. One Nations Malcolm Roberts is number four.
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While we do not know exactly how many people see each politician’s post, greater engagement is a factor in social media algorithms that can push posts to a wider audience.
We can also see that Senator Rennick’s audience has grown rapidly, and his followers have increased more than 350 percent since the beginning of October.
Digital campaigners working for the coalition boasted after the 2019 election about their strategy of arming “boomer memes” to win the “thumbs battle”.
Allegations of “harm” by vaccine dominate Rennick’s diet
At least 80 percent of Senator Rennick’s Facebook posts between Nov. 1 and Nov. 23 have directly mentioned COVID-19 vaccines.
Many of these are stories sent to him by members of the public claiming to have had side effects from vaccines. Health experts have warned about this potentially dangerous because such stories could undermine public confidence in vaccines.
Senator Rennick said he has talked on the phone with the people who have submitted most of the stories, and he talks to about half a dozen of them daily.
“I say in a way, ‘Can you send me a few pictures, give me some more details’ … I do my best, but it worries me, I have to be honest, I do not want to talk shit for lack of a better expression, he said.
“I felt it was important to highlight the risks of both elections. My commitment is to promote the health and well-being of all Australians. It is also to protect the minority groups.”
He said no one in the federal government had “directly” talked to him about his Facebook post this month. “Until pretty much four, five weeks ago, I had said very little about the rollout of the vaccine. I did not undermine it to some extent. I threw a few more shaky out there around the PCR testing and enumeration of sequelae with COVID . “
Senator Rennick apologized this week and deleted a post with a woman who had previously called for New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to be executed.
“Do I have a commitment to be as accurate as possible?” he said. “Absolutely, and I try to do that to the best of my ability.”
Facebook tries to find the ‘right balance’
Nearly every other post on his side this month has been about shutdowns and controlling the pandemic of state governments. His views have been critical.
Since the beginning of November, Senator Rennick has written only once on a topic unrelated to the pandemic: a post on November 11.
Health Secretary Greg Hunt did not respond to questions about Senator Rennick’s Facebook activity, but instead sent a statement to ABC announcing a decision to reduce the threshold for applying under the Commonwealth’s vaccine reimbursement scheme from $ 5,000 to $ 1,000.
The government says it will give people who have not yet been vaccinated more “comfort” to do so.
Senator Rennick has said he will now support the government in procedural votes in parliament, but still insists on supporting the government’s bill.
Facebook said it is trying to find the right balance between supporting freedom of expression and keeping society safe from harmful misinformation.
“We do not allow anyone, including public figures, to share misinformation about COVID-19 that could lead to imminent physical harm or misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines that have been rejected by public health experts,” a Facebook spokesman said.
They would not confirm whether any of Senator Rennick’s posts had been removed, stating for privacy reasons: “Pages or accounts that repeatedly violate these rules will have restrictions on their side, and repeat offenders will be removed from Facebook. . “
Conservative MPs dominate Facebook engagement
Sentor Rennick may have shouted his way to the top of Facebook engagement rankings, but conservatives and fringe politicians are often in a similar position.
Once politicians are ranked by their overall Facebook interactions, One Nations Malcolm Roberts and Pauline Hanson can usually be found close to the top of the list.
So far in November, they are number two and third, respectively.
Mr. Morrison’s page draws the fourth-highest number of interactions, with Anthony Albanese behind him.
Senator Jacqui Lambie and Queensland Coalition MP George Christensen follow, with Labor’s Richard Marles, National’s Senator Matthew Canavan and Sydney Labor MP Tanya Plibersek rounding out the top 10.
This is not a new pattern: MPs on the political fringes also dominated Facebook conversations in the run-up to the 2019 election.
However, the strong commitment on Facebook was not necessarily translated into strong election support at the ballot box.
Senator Rennick said he believes vaccines and mandates are issues that will change that.
“This has now become a single issue for many people and it will be at the next election, I think, will be the issue they vote on,” he said.
“In all my time, I’ve never had a problem that just fired people up.”
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