Meta’s Decision on Hun Sen Skewered as ‘Failure’ to Deter Violence

WASHINGTON — Cambodia’s government congratulated tech giant Meta on its decision late last month to reject a recommendation from the company’s own Oversight Board to suspend former Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook account.

That feeling wasn’t shared by other groups closely following the case, which centered on a video of Hun Sen making explicit threats of physical violence toward his political opponents.

Meta’s Oversight Board — along with human rights groups and digital security experts — skewered the decision in interviews and email exchanges with VOA Khmer this month.

“It is hard to imagine a clearer case of a political leader using social media to amplify threats and intimidation,” Oversight Board co-shair Michael McConnell said in an emailed statement.

He noted the video was part of a “concerning pattern of behavior from the Cambodian government” using social media as a tool of political suppression, in what Freedom House described as “digital authoritarianism.”

“Our decision sets out clear guidance to Meta to deter public figures who would exploit its platforms to incite violence. Meta’s inaction is a failure to ensure its platforms do not contribute to these harms,” added McConnell, a Stanford law school professor.

On June 29, Meta’s Oversight Board — a group of prominent global experts that makes mostly non-binding recommendations on some of the company’s thorniest policy questions — released a report recommending the suspension of Hun Sen’s Facebook account and a series of additional policy changes.

The response from Hun Sen’s government was swift.

Oversight Board members were promptly banned from the country, while the prime minister proactively shut down his own account and suggested he might block the platform entirely in Cambodia.