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Lindsay Murdoch
Phnom Penh: When 38 year-old labour activist Sam Sokha posted a 13 second Facebook video of herself throwing a sandal at a billboard of Cambodian’s Prime Minister Hun Sen she was charged with “insult of a public official” and “incitement to discriminate” and faces three years jail.
Across south-east Asia authoritarian governments are turning to Facebook to identify critics, vilify opposition figures and spread fake news and propaganda, rights advocates say.
The social media giants’ hosting of misleading and inaccurate stories and information is further threatening freedom of speech and political freedoms in the region as internet usage steadily increases in countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, they say.
But only weeks after Cambodia’s exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy was found guilty and fined US$1 million in absentia for posting a supposedly defamatory Facebook message about Hun Sen he has hit back in one of the first civil lawsuits to seek inside information from Facebook on alleged abuses of the network.
In the lawsuit filed in a US court Rainsy seeks information in Facebook’s possession on how Hun Sen has allegedly abused the network to persecute his opponents, including making death threats.
The lawsuit also petitions evidence on how Hun Sen allegedly falsified his popularity by use of “click farms” in the Philippines and India to generate millions of “likes” on his Facebook account.
Hun Sen, who denies the claim, has massed almost nine million followers on the account, often posting selfies, state news and singing contests to soften his image as a strongman accused of orchestrating waves of political violence over decades to entrench his power.
Rainsy’s San Francisco-based lawyers BraunHagey and Borden said in a statement “the issues raised in the petition ask fundamental questions about Facebook’s role in the democratic process, including how it will react when being misused by repressive regimes.”
Rainsy said “we are counting on Facebook to help shed light on (Hun Sen’s) manipulation of technology.”
Hun Sen turned to Facebook after opposition parties used social media to organise the strongest challenge to his three decade-long reign at elections in 2013.
Rights advocates say his regime has developed expertise in using Facebook’s anti-abuse systems to purge his critics from the network while closing down much of the country’s independent media outlets, including the Cambodia Daily and 18 news radio stations.
Facebook has now overtaken television as Cambodians’ most popular source of news, especially among young people, with 4.8 million of Cambodia’s 15.8 million people connected to the internet, surveys show.
Cambodian political analyst Ou Virak said last year that Cambodians’ trust in Facebook was misplaced given the rampant amount of fake news and conspiracy theories that are posted.
“They don’t distinguish the source or credibility of information,” he said, estimating that seven out of 10 stories on his Facebook news feed are false or exaggerated.
Much of that news comes from pro-Hun Sen news sites such as Fresh News which claimed in a series of recent stories that Rainsy’s Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) has plotted to overthrow the government in a US-backed conspiracy.
Diplomats and analysts in Phnom Penh say the claim is to give Hun Sen cover to wage a sweeping crackdown on his critics ahead of elections scheduled for mid-year.
He often uses social media to echo US President Donald Trump’s claims about the “fake news” media to cast doubt on reports critical of him or his regime.
Anonymously operated Facebook accounts have also been the source of leaks republished by Fresh News, including alleged recordings entangling opposition officials in infidelity.
Hun Sen’s regime has relentlessly pursued Rainsy over his Facebook posts resulting in several convictions relating to online speech.
Rainsy faces at least five years jail if he returns to the country.
Two other opposition MPs were sentenced to years in prison, their parliamentary immunity from prosecution rescinded, because their allegedly defamatory posts remained available online.
Cambodian officials have told journalists they regularly ask Facebook to take down accounts because of language used in posts or because they do not appear to be registered in real names.
Facebook, which often compiles with the requests, says it removes “credible threats, hate speech and impersonation profiles when we’re made aware of them.”
According to a report by the Washington-based NGO Freedom House internet freedom deteriorated in Cambodia in 2017 with prison sentences and new arrests for online speech.
Opposition figures, many of whom have fled the country, are in hiding or in jail, have warned their followers to avoid expressing criticism of the government on Facebook and other social media networks.
As democratic progress has stalled elsewhere in Asia, grassroots social movements are faltering as they face attacks from powerful pro-government forces using “online armies” of trolls who target government critics.
In the Philippines an intense campaign of fake news aimed at the independent on-line news outlet Rappler played a key role in a regulator invoking its licence.
Rappler often published stories critical of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Facebook was already under fire for publishing inaccurate stories favouring Duterte during 2016 elections.
In Myanmar, Facebook has become a key medium for anti-Muslim speech stoking widespread support among the Buddhist-majority for the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslins in Rakhine State.
In Malaysia a “cyber-warfare unit” linked to the long-ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) is reportedly ready to bombard Facebook and other social media when Prime Minister Najib Razak calls elections before August.
Najib’s government, which is engulfed in one of the world’s biggest corruption scandals, already exerts control over the country’s mainstream media.
Concern is rising in Indonesia about fake-news generators paid to sow social divisions for political gain ahead of general elections in 2019.
Communist Vietnam has also harassed and jailed a wave of bloggers critical of government policy, many of them in relation to Facebook posts.
Sam Sokha, the activist who threw her sandal at Hun Sen’s billboard, fled to Thailand last year where the UN refugee agency UNHCR gave her refugee status, meaning she had a well-founded fear of persecution if she returned to Cambodia.
But Thai authorities arrested her on Thursday and handed her over to Cambodian officials before being flown to Phnom Penh where she will face trial.
