Meta’s Oversight Board Calls for Facebook to Halt Cambodia’s Prime Minister’s Account
In a recent news release, Meta’s Oversight Board has requested a six-month suspension of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts due to his involvement in inciting violence. This marks the second occasion within a week where the Board has overturned a prominent Meta review, following a Brazilian user’s video urging supporters to “besiege” the government. Notably, this is the first instance where the Oversight Board has called for the banning of a head of state, a decision that could potentially impact future policy determinations.
Hun Sen, who has led Cambodia since 1985, is facing elections this month. Earlier this year, he released a video of a speech in which he told political opponents that he would “gather CPP (Cambodian People’s Party) people to protest and beat you.” After several user reports and petitions, Meta’s policy and subject matter experts recommended that the post be removed based on newsworthiness, even if it violated the company’s community standards regarding violence and incitement.
“Given the seriousness of the violation, Hun Sen’s history of human rights abuses and intimidation of political opponents, and his strategic use of social media to amplify such threats, the government urges Meta to immediately suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook page and Instagram account for six months,” it wrote. The suspension is not binding, but Meta must remove the disputed video within 60 days.
In justifying the decision, the government stated that “the harm caused by allowing the content on the platform outweighs the public interest value of the publication”, especially given the Prime Minister’s reach on social media. The original moderate decision, it added, “resulted in Meta’s platforms contributing to these harms by increasing threats and resulting intimidation.”
Such behavior should not be rewarded. Meta should more heavily weigh press freedom when considering newsworthiness so that the allowance is not applied to government speech in situations where that government has made its own content more newsworthy by limiting free press.
In addition to Hun Sen’s ban, the government instructed Meta to make it clear that its moderate policy is not limited to isolated unrest or violence. It also recommended removing the news value compensation policy in cases of incitement to violence and prioritizing checks on heads of state and senior government members. Finally, it asked Meta to disclose the reasons for its decision against Hun Sen “and all account-level actions against heads of state and senior government members.”
The board’s assessment could set the bar for moderation by other authoritarian leaders in Asia, Human Rights Watch director Phil Robertson told The Post, while calling the call for Hun Sen’s removal “long overdue.” Facebook famously banned former US President Donald Trump from the platform (and reinstated his account earlier this year), but has bowed to censorship demands in nations like Vietnam. Twitter owner Elon Musk recently justified censorship in Turkey ahead of the election, saying the company “has no real choice” but to comply with such requests.
The Cambodian government has yet to respond to the government’s decision, but previously said the remarks were “just confirmation of the legal process” in the country. Hun Sen, who has 14 million Facebook followers, said today that he will stop all active posting on Facebook and use Telegram instead.
