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The often very lively Facebook account for Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia appeared to have been deleted on Friday, a day after the oversight board for Meta, Facebook’s mother or father firm, advisable that he be suspended from the platform for threatening political opponents with violence.
The showdown pits the social media behemoth towards certainly one of Asia’s longest-ruling autocrats.
Mr. Hun Sen, 70, has dominated Cambodia since 1985 and maintained energy partly by silencing his critics. He is a staunch ally of China, a rustic whose help comes freed from American-style admonishments on the worth of human rights and democratic establishments.
A word Friday on Mr. Hun Sen’s account, which had about 14 million followers, mentioned that its content material “isn’t available right now.” It was not instantly clear if Mr. Hun Sen had preemptively deleted it, as he had vowed to do in a submit late Thursday on Telegram, a social media platform the place he has a a lot smaller following. A Meta spokesman mentioned on Friday that the corporate had not suspended or in any other case eliminated Mr. Hun Sen’s Facebook account.
“That he stopped using Facebook is his private right,” Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Cambodian authorities, advised The New York Times on Friday. “Other Cambodians use it, and that’s their right.”
The company-appointed oversight board for Meta had on Thursday advisable a minimal six-month suspension of Mr. Hun Sen’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which Meta additionally owns. The board additionally mentioned that certainly one of Mr. Hun Sen’s Facebook movies had violated Meta’s guidelines on “violence and incitement” and ought to be taken down.
In the video, Mr. Hun Sen delivered a speech during which he responded to allegations of vote-stealing by calling on his political opponents to decide on between the authorized system and “a bat.”
“If you say that’s freedom of expression, I will also express my freedom by sending people to your place and home,” Mr. Hun Sen mentioned within the speech, based on Meta.
Meta had beforehand determined to maintain the video on-line below a coverage that enables the platform to permit content material that violates Facebook’s group requirements on the grounds that it’s newsworthy and within the public curiosity. But the oversight board mentioned on Thursday that it was overturning the choice, calling it “incorrect.”
The board added that its suggestion to droop Mr. Hun Sen’s accounts for at the least six months was justified given the severity of the violation and his “history of committing human rights violations and intimidating political opponents, and his strategic use of social media to amplify such threats.”
Meta later said in a statement that it would remove the offending video to comply with the board’s decision. The company also said that it would respond to the suspension recommendation after analyzing it.
Critics of Facebook have long said that the platform can undermine democracy, promote violence and help politicians unfairly target their critics, particularly in countries with weak institutions.
Mr. Hun Sen has spent years cracking down on the news media and political opposition in an effort to consolidate his grip on power. In February, he ordered the shutdown of one of the country’s last independent news outlets, saying he did not like its coverage of his son and presumed successor, Lt. Gen. Hun Manet.
Under Mr. Hun Sen, the government has also pushed for more government surveillance of the internet, a move that rights groups say makes it even easier for the authorities to monitor and punish online content.
Mr. Hun Sen’s large Facebook following may overstate his actual support. In 2018, one of his most prominent political opponents, Sam Rainsy, argued in a California court that the prime minister used so-called click farms to accumulate millions of counterfeit followers.
Mr. Sam Rainsy, who lives in exile, also argued that Mr. Hun Sen had used Facebook to spread false news stories and death threats directed at political opponents. The court later denied his request that Facebook be compelled to release records of advertising purchases by Mr. Hun Sen and his allies.
In 2017, an opposition political party that Mr. Sam Rainsy had led, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, was dissolved by the country’s highest court. More recently, the Cambodian authorities have disqualified other opposition parties from running in a general election next month.
At a public event in Cambodia on Friday, Mr. Hun Sen said that his political opponents outside the country were surely happy with his decision to quit Facebook.
“You have to be aware that if I order Facebook to be shut down in Cambodia, it will strongly affect you,” he added, talking at an occasion for garment employees forward of the final election. “But this is not the path that I choose.”