Videos published by a “coronavirus denier” group that was told by the Conservative MP Sir Desmond Swayne to persist with its anti-lockdown activities have been removed from Facebook after the social network concluded they posed a risk of “imminent physical harm”.
More than 60,000 people followed the Save Our Rights UK group, which drew wider attention on Thursday after it emerged Swayne had used a November interview to make baseless claims that NHS figures had been manipulated to exaggerate the scale of the coronavirus crisis.
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After the Guardian identified videos on the page that promoted the conspiracy theorist Piers Corbyn’s claims that vaccinations were “just to make money and to control you”, as well as an interview in which it was claimed that coronavirus was a hoax linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, Facebook said it had taken them down because they “violated our Covid-19 misinformation policies”.
A spokesperson said: “We remove Covid-19 misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm, including false information about approved vaccines.” It said it removed 12m pieces of such content between March and October last year.
The videos are still hosted on YouTube, which did not respond to a request for comment before the time of publication.
The Facebook removals will further increase pressure on the government to take sterner action against Swayne. The former minister has been spoken to by the Conservative chief whip, Mark Spencer, but has so far avoided more serious punishment.
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