The WA Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Tangney, Mark Wales, has announced he will no longer contest the must-win seat.

Mr Wales won pre-selection for the seat last month with a clear majority.

But in a statement, the former SAS soldier and reality TV star said a close family member had recently suffered a "serious medical episode" and was in intensive care in Melbourne.

"When I spoke to Liberal Party members in Tangney during my preselection in April, I assured them that I share their fundamental values. Specifically, I said I was 'all in' for family," Mr Wales said.

"My family means everything to me – so my first priority is to be with them and provide all the support they need during this incredibly difficult time.

"This means I am not able to devote all my time and energy to being on the ground and campaigning locally in Tangney."

He said by stepping aside now, he would give the Liberal Party more time to pre-select a candidate for the seat.

The blue-ribbon seat was snatched from the Liberals at the last election by Labor's dolphin trainer-turned police officer Sam Lim, who secured an 11.9 per cent swing to hold the seat on a 2.4 per cent margin.

Mr Wales had won pre-selection over five other candidates, with two – Sean Ayres and Howard Ong – considered frontrunners at the time.

The party's State Council will hold a special meeting later this week to decide on the process of replacing him.

It's understood many of the candidates who contested pre-selection are still weighing up whether they would put their hands up again.

Mr Wales has written a book, set to be released later this year, which depicts a civil war in Australia following an invasion by Chinese forces.

At the time he was pre-selected, he denied the book would be controversial, saying the invasion was a "minor part of the story".

But the president of WA's Chung Wah Association, Ting Chen, believed Mr Wales' pre-selection showed the party was "ignorant of how the voters of Tangney think about a candidate who fantasised a war with our largest trading partner".

"Our community wants peace, more trade, not war," he said.

More than 16 per cent of residents in the seat identify as Chinese.

· In short: The Multicultural Council of Tasmania has submitted a formal complaint to Equal Opportunity Tasmania over what they allege is a failure by Pulse to moderate comments on its social media pages. 

· Social media experts say media organisations are responsible for comments made on their accounts. 

· What's next? Pulse says it hasn't received any complaints in relation to the post,  but will attempt to make contact with the multicultural council to discuss its concerns. 

Tasmania's multicultural council (MCOT) has formally complained against local media company Pulse, alleging the company has facilitated the incitement of hatred towards people with migrant backgrounds by failing to moderate comments on its social media pages.

Council chair Aimen Jafri reported Pulse to Tasmania's anti-discrimination body, Equal Opportunity, after community members reached out to her regarding an "outpour of negative comments" made on a post by Pulse on Saturday.

The post, about former premier Peter Gutwein's fundraising plans for the Migrant Resource Centre, received over 200 comments and more than 700 'reactions'.

While many commenters praised Mr Gutwein's mission, others posted racist comments that held anti-migration views or complained about "fake-ugees". Some of these posts remained on the page for more than a day.

Ms Jafri said those comments were offensive and discriminatory and made people from migrant and refugee backgrounds feel "vulnerable".

She said it was a shame given the nature of the original media story.

"Peter's walk was all about creating that cultural awareness … it's all about creating that conversation that migrants [and refugees] are adding a lot of value to the state," Ms Jafri said.

Media companies responsible for comments on their page

A landmark media court case in 2019 established that Australian media organisations are considered the publishers of third-party comments on their social media pages, and are therefore able to be held liable for them.

Some media organisations, including the ABC, turn off the ability to comment on Facebook posts after it is no longer practical for the comments to be moderated.

Pulse Tasmania's social media policy states it aims to remove inflammatory comments "as soon as possible", including those that are "offensive, racist, vulgar or hateful", that are defamatory, or that contain "threatening language".

Ms Jafri said while she reported individual comments using Facebook's own mechanism, she did not contact Pulse directly.

Pulse's Invasion Day post attracted 'threats of violence'

A separate complaint was made to Pulse earlier this year by a member of Tasmania's Aboriginal community, Jamie Graham-Blair.

He complained to Pulse about "threats of violence, ignorance, homophobia and racism" in comments made on the company's 'Invasion Day' post.

The ABC has seen these posts, many of which remained online for more than three days and contained racist slurs and threats.

Jamie appealed to his social media followers to report hateful comments to various anti-discrimination bodies.

"That day fills my stomach with anxiety and fear as well as pride and strength every year, and it's always the comments sections of various pages and media outlets that make me so very aware of Australia's seething desire for me, and my people to not exist," Jamie said.

"It shouldn't fall on the shoulders of those who are already facing the violence of racism every day to make public spaces, online or otherwise, safe for us to exist in."

"If Pulse wishes to be viewed as a media outlet then they need to be held accountable to the same standards and laws as every other outlet," he said.

At the time of Jamie's complaint to Pulse earlier this year, Pulse responded that it did "not have the resources to continually monitor comments across all posts after the initial 'wave'" and that after a story's publication "comment moderation is undertaken on an as-reported basis".

Pulse eventually disabled comments on the post and apologised "for any hurt caused as a result of hateful comments".

Pulse says it's yet to receive requests to remove comments 

In a statement, Pulse said it was "heartened by the overwhelmingly positive response" to the post.

But it would "proactively monitor(s) our pages and, as part of regular moderation efforts".

Pulse said it had "removed comments that did not align with our social media guidelines since this story was posted".

"In the interests of impartiality, comments which may be considered subjective and are not targeted at a specific person are assessed on a case-by-case basis when a complaint is made.

"We have not received any requests from our readers or members of Tasmania's multicultural community to remove specific comments related to this story.

"We encourage our readers to directly report any comments of concern they encounter on our platforms by following the steps outlined on our website, which will enable us to address them promptly."

Pulse said it will "attempt to make contact with the multicultural council to discuss [its] concerns as soon as appropriate".

Tricky role of social media moderation

The 2019 court case that affirmed media companies as responsible for the comments on their social media pages dealt with a former NT youth detainee who sued three of Australia's largest media organisations for defamation.

The media companies appealed but their case was dismissed in the High Court.

Social media researcher Rob Nicholls says media organisations benefit from increased publicity from interactions with their content on their social media pages.

"[Media organisations] have control over whether they moderate what their followers say or not," Dr Nicholls said.

"By choosing not to, [they're] effectively endorsing those actions." 

Dr Nicholls also said the organisation's size was not a consideration under anti-discrimination or defamation law.

"Perhaps the most logical thing to do would be to not allow comments on the content that's going to cause much harm."

Jamie called for a "growth in media literacy", including identifying potentially harmful and discriminatory online content.

"To know when to take things further than reporting to social media platforms. To know what hate speech looks like, what discrimination looks like, what human rights abuses looks like, to know when a platform is breaching ethical practices and how to hold them to account," he said.

"The world needs more accountability right now, especially in the media industry."