Khmer Circle:
Sadly, these social media platforms have thus far been targeting their censhorship on those who fight against injustice and autocrats rather than the other way around. This is perhaps due to the work of an army of digital agents employed by these regimes to sabotage and harrass anyone whose views or postings are deemed to be subversive or against their approved official lines.
^^^
A company verdict on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s online incitement could set a precedent for other autocrats.
By Fiona Kelliher, a freelance journalist covering politics, human rights, and digital authoritarianism in Southeast Asia.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gestures as he arrives to attend the EU-ASEAN summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels on Dec. 14, 2022. Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
June 5, 2023, 10:14 PM
In January, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen went live on Facebook during a groundbreaking ceremony for a new road and addressed his political opponents. In a veiled reference to a politician convicted of defamation last year, Hun Sen threatened legal action against anyone who said the ruling party had stolen votes. “There are only two options. One is to use legal means and the other is to use a stick,” the prime minister said. “Either you face legal action in court, or I rally [the Cambodian] People’s Party people for a demonstration and beat you up.”
Cambodia will hold national elections on July 23, and the prime minister is expected to extend his 38 years in power. Bombastic rhetoric is typical for Hun Sen, who leads a country of 17 million people and has around 14 million Facebook followers. But the January remarks drew immediate attention from both local and international media, and a few users reported the speech for inciting violence. Meta, which owns Facebook, eventually determined that Hun Sen had violated its community standards. But the moderators left the speech online on the grounds it was “newsworthy,” which Facebook defines as when public interest outweighs threat to public safety or risk of harm.
The speech has become a litmus test for Meta, which has pledged to improve its content moderation and understanding of political contexts in Southeast Asia. Nearly six years ago, Facebook’s algorithms contributed to human rights violations during Myanmar’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority. The company has since released a corporate human rights policy and claims that it has strengthened language capacity and local relationships in the region. However, critics argue that these efforts are more about bolstering Meta’s reputation than accepting responsibility for the platform’s links to violence in these countries.
In January, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen went live on Facebook during a groundbreaking ceremony for a new road and addressed his political opponents. In a veiled reference to a politician convicted of defamation last year, Hun Sen threatened legal action against anyone who said the ruling party had stolen votes. “There are only two options. One is to use legal means and the other is to use a stick,” the prime minister said. “Either you face legal action in court, or I rally [the Cambodian] People’s Party people for a demonstration and beat you up.”
Cambodia will hold national elections on July 23, and the prime minister is expected to extend his 38 years in power. Bombastic rhetoric is typical for Hun Sen, who leads a country of 17 million people and has around 14 million Facebook followers. But the January remarks drew immediate attention from both local and international media, and a few users reported the speech for inciting violence. Meta, which owns Facebook, eventually determined that Hun Sen had violated its community standards. But the moderators left the speech online on the grounds it was “newsworthy,” which Facebook defines as when public interest outweighs threat to public safety or risk of harm.
The speech has become a litmus test for Meta, which has pledged to improve its content moderation and understanding of political contexts in Southeast Asia. Nearly six years ago, Facebook’s algorithms contributed to human rights violations during Myanmar’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority. The company has since released a corporate human rights policy and claims that it has strengthened language capacity and local relationships in the region. However, critics argue that these efforts are more about bolstering Meta’s reputation than accepting responsibility for the platform’s links to violence in these countries.
Meta’s Oversight Board, a group of independent experts that arbitrates content moderation, is now reviewing the Hun Sen case, with a binding decision about the video expected before July. The board will also deliver policy recommendations that could influence how Meta approaches political speech ahead of other upcoming elections in Asia, including in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Myanmar. The decision is unlikely to affect the results of the vote in Cambodia, where the government recently banned the main opposition party from participation. But for people across Asia, it will signal where Meta may draw the line on the issue of political threats and incitement—rhetoric that leaders from Pakistan to the Philippines have embraced.
The crux of the matter rests on Meta’s definition of newsworthiness, which is by its own admission “highly subjective.” Meta grants an exception for newsworthiness in cases where speech may violate other community standards after a “thorough review” by Facebook teams of whether the content creates an immediate safety threat or “gives voice to perspectives currently being debated as part of a political process.” Between June 2021 and June 2022, Facebook moderators justified content with this standard 68 times, with about one-fifth of those allowances given to politicians, according to a Meta transparency center article. (Meta declined to comment through a spokesperson.)
Meta’s internal thinking on the issue remains unclear. “I cannot tell you, ‘Here’s exactly the process,’” said Julie Owono, an Oversight Board member and executive director of Internet Sans Frontières. “We want to make sure users have, if not a precise idea, at least a less vague idea of what happens when content is taken down, or what happens when [they] report something.”
When it comes to incitement on social media, the risk of harm is not theoretical in Southeast Asia. Although Facebook’s vast reach has enabled information-sharing in native languages across the region, it has also amplified hate speech and violence, most notably in Myanmar. In 2018, the company commissioned an independent report about its role in the violence there, admitting it wasn’t “doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence.” Facebook launched the Oversight Board in 2020 and a corporate human rights policy in 2021, which committed to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, along with other international standards, depending on the circumstances.
Given this stated commitment to human rights, some critics argue that Meta’s newsworthiness exception should be scrapped altogether. The International Commission of Jurists, made up of 60 lawyers and judges around the world, publicly pointed out to the Oversight Board that human rights laws do not contain public interest exceptions, and that there is a distinction between protecting journalists reporting on hate speech and the newsworthiness of the speech itself. Meta’s current allowance “would eviscerate the protection provided by international human rights law against expression inciting violence, hostility or discrimination,” the commission wrote.
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