Cambodia PM backtracks on threat to ban Facebook amid content row

A political fiasco has unfolded for Facebook after Prime Minister Hun Sen was accused of inciting violence on the platform.

Would Cambodia’s strongman ruler Hun Sen follow through on a threat to block access to Facebook for his country’s millions of users? That was the question many asked in the nation of 17 million people on Friday when the prime minister began his day threatening to ban the social media platform, but then walked back his warning in a late-night statement.

“I only decided to close down my own Facebook,” Hun Sen said in a voice message on the Telegram messaging app on Friday night. “I have no intention to shut down Facebook in Cambodia,” he said, closing out a day in which many Cambodians discovered that their ruler of almost 40 years had been accused by a Facebook oversight board of inciting violence against political opponents on his profile page.

What has become a political fiasco for Facebook in Cambodia began on Thursday when a board of experts adjudicating content for Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Facebook, called for a six-month suspension of Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts over a livestreamed speech in which he allegedly threatened violence against political opponents.

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