Meta rejects proposal to suspend Cambodia’s ex-Premier
Meta has chosen not to suspend the Facebook and Instagram accounts of Cambodia’s former Prime Minister, going against the suggestion made by its Oversight Board. The independent board had advised Meta to impose a six-month suspension on Hun Sen’s social media accounts due to his involvement in inciting violence.
In a response to the case released Wednesday, Meta said a long-term suspension “would not be consistent” with its policy. “After evaluating Hun Sen’s Facebook page and Instagram account, we determined that freezing these accounts outside of our normal enforcement framework would not be consistent with our policies, including our protocol for restricting public figure accounts during unrest,” the company wrote.
Meta’s handling of the high-profile case has been closely watched around the world, and many see it as a test of the company’s policies to guide the speech of politicians, who have historically had more leeway on the platform. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Oversight Board said the group “stands by” its recommendations: “Claims are an integral part of democracy and social media companies must ensure that their platforms are not abused in ways that threaten to undermine them. The board stands by its original decision and urges Meta to do everything it can to prevent public figures from , who use its platforms to incite violence.
The company had initially asked the supervisory board to weigh in on the video sent by Sen. The video was of a speech in which Sen told political opponents that he would “gather CPP (Cambodian People’s Party) people to protest and beat you.” Meta had decided not to watch the video, citing its controversial news value policy, despite the fact that it had violated the company’s own rules.
The supervisory board overturned Meta’s decision and said the video should be removed. The government also said that Sen should face a long ban. “Given the seriousness of the violation, Hun Sen’s history of human rights violations 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.
Meta agreed and removed the video in response to the board’s decision, which is binding according to the organization’s rules. The company had 60 days to respond to the government’s non-binding recommendations.
In particular, Meta also rejected other recommendations of the supervisory board in the case. The company chose not to clarify how its public figure rules apply in “contexts where citizens are under constant threat of retaliatory violence by their governments” rather than isolated incidents of violence.
“The protocol is not designed for situations where state violence or human rights restrictions have resulted in continued state restrictions on expression for an unspecified period of time,” Meta wrote, referring to the policy it implemented in response to the oversight board’s recommendations. the suspension of former President Donald Trump’s account. “Applying the protocol in these circumstances may result in the suspension of the public figures’ account indefinitely, which (aside from issues of fairness) may hinder people’s ability to obtain information about their directors and officers and to express themselves on Meta’s platforms.”
Similarly, Meta said it was “assessing [the] feasibility” of the government’s recommendation to change its news rating policy to specifically prevent incitement to violence. It also said it was considering a recommendation that posts by heads of state and other government officials be prioritized for review by human moderators when they are reviewed for incitement to violence.
The company said it is “partially implementing” two other recommendations in this case. The company agreed to make some “product and/or policy changes” to make longer videos easier to view. But in response to a suggestion that the company is pledging to be more transparent about how it enforces its rules on the accounts of high-profile government officials, the company said that in some cases it may continue to withhold details.
“While we have shared details of enforcement actions on the accounts belonging to Hun Sen in this case and on former US President Trump’s accounts, there may be situations where privacy and security considerations outweigh Meta’s public sharing of actions that have taken place.”
