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Cambodia
AsiaSoutheast Asia

Cambodian PM Hun Sen switches social media loyalty from Facebook to Telegram in face of potential ban

  • The long-serving prime minister said he will no longer upload to Facebook where he has 14 million followers
  • Hun Sen could be temporarily banned from the platform over controversial remarks he posted earlier this year on it

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Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen takes a selfie with a supporter in Phnom Penh on June 19. Photo: AFP
Associated Press

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, a devoted and very active user of Facebook – on which he has posted everything from photos of his grandchildren to threats against his political enemies – said on Wednesday that he will no longer upload to the platform and will instead depend on the Telegram app to get his message across.

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Telegram is a popular messaging app that also has a blogging tool called “channels.”

In Russia and some of the neighbouring countries, it is actively used both by government officials and opposition activists for communicating with mass audiences. Telegram played an important role in coordinating unprecedented anti-government protests in Belarus in 2020, and currently serves as a major source of news about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The 70-year-old year Hun Sen, who has led Cambodia for 38 years, is listed as having 14 million Facebook followers, though critics have suggested a large number are merely “ghost” accounts bought in bulk from so-called “click farms,” an assertion the long-serving prime minister has repeatedly denied.

The Facebook accounts of Joe Biden and Donald Trump by comparison boast 11 million and 34 million followers, respectively, though the United States has about 20 times the population of Cambodia.

Hun Sen officially launched his Facebook page on September 20, 2015, after his fierce political rival, opposition leader Sam Rainsy, effectively showed how it could be used to mobilise support. Hun Sen is noted as a canny and sometimes ruthless politician, and has since then managed to drive his rival into exile and neutralise all his challengers, even though Cambodia is a nominally democratic state.

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