Former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who led the country for nearly forty years before handing over power to his son Hun Manet in mid-August, will be able to keep his Facebook and Instagram accounts. A decision by Meta, the parent company of the two social networks, which contravenes the recommendations issued by the Oversight Board, an independent authority funded by Meta, which the company has set up to arbitrate complex or particularly sensitive moderation decisions.
On January 8, Hun Sen posted a long speech on his Facebook page in which he threatened to take legal action against people critical of him, saying he was ready to use violence. “There are only two options, use the legal procedures, or use the sticks. What do you prefer ? (…). Either you will have a trial, or I will ask the [Cambodian People’s Party] activists to organize a demonstration and beat you up. » The video had been reported by several Internet users to Facebook’s moderation teams, but it remained online. A choice contested by users of the platform with the Oversight Board.
Decisions too slow
In June, the latter had issued his conclusions, believing that the video should have been deleted, and also recommended the outright suspension of Hun Sen’s accounts. The decisions of this “supreme court” are binding with regard to deletions or restorations of content, but the company is not, however, obliged to follow its “recommendations” about deletions of accounts. On Monday, Meta therefore announced that the video had been deleted, but said that the deletion of Hun Sen’s accounts was not justified.
“We have determined that suspending Hun Sen’s accounts is not appropriate,” Meta wrote. The company provides that the accounts of prominent political figures can only be deleted in the event of a serious crisis, and believes that when Hun Sen posted this video “the situation in Cambodia did not meet the criteria defining a crisis [with imminent risk of violence]”. The decision revived recurring criticisms of the limits on the power of the Oversight Board, whose procedures are long and sometimes perceived as insufficiently binding, knowing that Meta has sixty days to implement the requests of this board.
In early June, after the announcement of the Oversight Board’s decision, Hun Sen himself temporarily closed his Facebook and Instagram accounts and threatened to block Facebook across the country. He had finally reactivated his accounts just before the July legislative election, in which his Cambodian People’s Party won 120 of the 125 seats in parliament, after the main opposition party was banned.
