Meta’s Oversight Board recommended suspending Cambodian leader Hun Sen’s Facebook account after he posted a video advocating violence.
Human Rights Watch said Meta’s decision shows that Hun Sen and other authoritarian leaders like him “can weaponize Facebook against their opponents and suffer barely a slap on the wrist.” The organization said that political activists face online and offline harassment, such as the case of human rights defender and monk Luon Sovath, who was smeared by manipulated videos and accounts impersonating him, and has since fled the country.
After the Oversight Board’s initial decision, Hun Sen seemed to preempt a potential suspension of his account by deleting his Facebook page, only to return to the platform around three weeks later, the. His government also threatened to kick out Meta employees in the country, though Meta does not have a physical office in Cambodia.
Suspending Hun Sen’s page would have led to an “indefinite disconnect” between Meta and the Cambodian government, said Chhengpor Aun, a visiting fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Both sides “find each other indispensable,” he said. “[The] Cambodian politicians cannot give up Facebook and Facebook cannot move on to operate with the government without resolving the issue.
Experts have warned social media companies that they need to moderate hateful content online that might incite or spill into offline violence, especially with upcoming elections in the region, including Indonesia and Bangladesh.dramatically cutting its safety responses, allowing users to opt out of fact-checks, disinvesting in Trust and Safety teams, and abdicating responsibility for political content,” said RFOB policy adviser Zamaan Qureshi.
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