Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has been accused of inciting violence against his political opponents by posting on Facebook. An oversight board for the social media platform in its 26-page report has recommended that his Facebook and Instagram accounts be suspended for six months.

The board of experts for Meta Platforms Inc, which issues binding content moderation decisions for the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms, said on Thursday that Facebook content moderators had erred by allowing Hun Sen’s livestreamed speech, in which he threatened political opponents, to remain on his page.

They noted that the “newsworthiness” of his threatening comments was not a valid reason to allow his speech to remain on Facebook, and that the platform had amplified Hun Sen’s incitement to violence ahead of the country’s July 23 national election by allowing the speech to remain online.

Meta has agreed to remove the video of the original, livestreamed speech. The social media company now has 60 days to decide whether it will accept the board’s recommendation and suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

In the speech, Hun Sen railed against people who he said had accused his ruling Cambodian People’s Party of stealing votes in local elections last year. He said his critics had a choice between facing the court or being beaten with “a stick”.

The video of his speech received about 600,000 views. If carried out, the suspension would place Hun Sen among the few world leaders sanctioned by the social media giant for inciting violence on its platform.

Most notably former US President Donald Trump was suspended from Facebook and Instagram for two years in 2021 for praising the actions of the Capitol Hill rioters. Facebook remains extremely popular in Southeast Asia and Cambodia, and Hun Sen has used social media to spread his authoritarian political messaging.

He has some 14 million followers on Facebook, though questions have been raised regarding the provenance of his huge online audience. In response to the possible suspension, Hun Sen said he would temporarily stop using Facebook and would, instead, use Telegram, where he has about 860,000 followers.

He also said he would create a TikTok account to connect with young people. Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said the Meta board’s recommendation was “long overdue” and its ruling on Hun Sen was “the sort of message Meta should be sending to authoritarians in the region”.

“The real problem in the region is no institutions or organisations ever hold the likes of Hun Sen accountable for his words and actions, so it’s entirely appropriate for Facebook to make it clear they are a global platform with international standards not beholden to local dictators like Hun Sen,” he said. Aim Sinpeng, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney specialising in Southeast Asian digital politics, noted that Meta had previously avoided moderating the comments of political leaders in the region. “

This is, in my view, something Meta has to tread carefully [with] to make sure it won’t appear to be ‘picking on’ a poor country but at the same time wanting to show strong support for human rights,” Sinpeng said.