Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook account was reactivated by Thursday morning, three weeks after Meta’s Oversight Board announced it recommended his Facebook and Instagram accounts be suspended for six months.
Also up just days before the July 23 election is the video at the center of the board’s investigation, a live streamed incendiary speech from January 9 in which the prime minister threatened to use legal action or “a stick” against his political opponents.
The Oversight Board overturned Meta’s decision to leave up the video on June 29, a binding ruling that requires Meta to remove the post within seven days.
“The video in this case included unequivocal statements of intent to commit violence against Hun Sen’s political opponents, which clearly violate the Violence and Incitement policy,” the Board stated in its ruling.
“Per the bylaws, Meta must implement our binding decision in any case within 7 days,” said Jeffrey Gelman, the Oversight Board’s Acting Vice President of Global Communications & Public Engagement, in an email to CamboJA on Thursday.
An earlier email from an Oversight Board spokesperson sent to CamboJA on July 1 said that Meta usually acted promptly in response to the board’s decisions, “within hours of publication.”
A June 29 update on a Meta Transparency Center post stated that Meta welcomed the board’s decision and “Meta will act to comply with the board’s decision and remove the content.”
Meta did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication as to why the video was still posted.
Hun Sen announced on his Telegram channel on June 28 that he would stop using Facebook and instead use Telegram because it is more “effective” and does not have “hacking” issues that Facebook has. Just hours after the board’s decisions on June 29 the account appeared to be deactivated.
A new post was published on Hun Sen’s reactivated Facebook page on Thursday at 12:32 a.m. and signed with the name Doung Dara, Hun Sen’s social media assistant. The post claimed that Dara intended to keep using the account.
“I do not want to lose the important page that I have used for the past 13 years,” the post stated. “I have decided to reuse and ask to keep this page for the benefit of society, even if Samdech Techo [Hun Sen] does not use it.”
Dara told CamboJA that from now on Hun Sen ‘s Facebook page will be under Dara’s management and belongs to him, because he created the page in 2010 and has been the “owner” of that page since then. He will post important information about social developments and information to keep people informed about Hun Sen.
“Samdach [Hun Sen] decided not to use it anymore, and I found it useful [to use it]. I am the owner of this page that has managed it so far. I decided to use it as my own, not related to Samdach,” he said.
Dara told CamboJA that there are three main platforms that the Prime Minister uses now: Telegram, Twitter and Tiktok. He mentioned that Cambodia has launched a new social media platform called Happy Watch which is similar to Facebook where people can stream live video and post pictures.
“Samdach [Hun Sen] is still using Telegram and Doung Dara is using that Facebook under the name of the officer that is close to Samdach and just acting as Samdach’s spokesperson,” said government spokesperson Phay Siphan. “For the benefit of people they can use two options, Telegram and Facebook, to [communicate with] Samdech.”
He said Dara will be responsible for the page and the Prime Minister’s priority is getting information out to the public.
“For more information please direct Doung Dara about the fact that he went back to using the Prime Minister’s Facebook page, because Prime Minister Hun Sen never speaks twice, he only speaks once,” Siphan said.
Hun Sen had previously disavowed all Facebook pages associated with his name, saying on Telegram on June 29, “From now on, any Facebook with the name Hun Sen is fake.”
In the aftermath of the Oversight Board’s ruling and recommendations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced on July 4 that the 22 members of the Meta’s Oversight Board were banned from Cambodia.
Dara previously urged people to subscribe to Hun Sen’s Telegram channel, according to the Khmer Times, so that it would reach 1 million subscribers before the July 23 election. The account had 986,718 subscribers by 4:50 p.m. today. His Facebook account has 14 million followers.
Political analyst Meas Nee pointed out that people in rural areas might prefer to follow the Prime Minister on Facebook because of their limited internet speeds.
“Comparatively, TikTok requires a lot of internet, so if people live in rural areas, they cannot be very lucky to have access to the internet,” said Meas Nee. “This is also one of the reasons why the messages sent by the Prime Minister through Tiktok or Telegram are not as numerous as on Facebook.”
The Oversight Board’s June ruling rejected Meta’s decision to keep the video on the platform and argued that Hun Sen’s large following on social media allowed his threat to spread more widely.
“The Board finds that Meta was wrong to apply a newsworthiness allowance in this case, as the harm caused by allowing the content on the platform outweighs the post’s public interest value,” the decision states.
The board also recommended that Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram pages be suspended for six months. Unlike the board’s decision on the video, its recommendations are not binding and Facebook has 60 days from their release to respond.
Update: As of Friday July 21, the link to Hun Sen’s speech was no longer accessible, after CamboJA published its story and requested comment from Meta’s Oversight Board and Meta. Meta has still not responded to CamboJA’s requests for comment.
