#59 – Vicinity of Obscenity
Cambodia’s Facebook Exodus
Sou Sdei and welcome to Campuccino, your fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia with a dash of opinion.
To new subscribers, welcome! I’m Darathtey, a communication consultant, newsletter writer, and researcher.
It’s been four months now since I went on my solo consultancy journey and it’s been very interesting and patience testing. As a person who is a workaholic and does not know how to give herself permission to pursue other fulfilling hobbies beyond work, it is an ongoing task for me to say it is okay to not work some days. I also need to get used to saying no to people asking me to work past my chargeable hours or, worse yet, for free. Anyway, enough with my TED Talk, let’s go to the news because we have quite a bit to cover.
- Darathtey
In this issue: Facebook, military vs. anonymous drones, REDD+, and more.
The talk of the town this week is the Prime Minister’s departure from Facebook, where he had over 14 million subscribers. The PM stated that his departure was due to his account being hacked and impersonated by many hackers. He, therefore, will move his social media activity to Telegram and TikTok (I’m very curious as to how his social media team will approach TikTok from this point onwards).
On a totally different note (and totally unrelated 😉), Facebook’s oversight board recently announced that they overruled Facebook’s previous decision to keep the PM’s content which allegedly incited violence posted earlier this year. The oversight board suggested that Meta put a 6-month suspension on the PM’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. As of now, there is no account left to be suspended because the PM already left.
Below are a few news reports from multiple sources for you to read more on the topic:
‘Facebook Prime Minister’ Taken Off Platform For Violent Speech, Hun Sen Moves to Telegram | CamboJANews
Cambodia PM Hun Sen accused of inciting violence on social media | Al Jazeera
Cambodian PM Hun Sen deletes Facebook page after criticism | Nikkei Asia
The story does not end there, however. The PM expressed that the oversight board overlooked other misconducts by some opposition members overseas who allegedly attacked his wife and his children on the platform in the past. He threatened that he could cut off communication between the opposition and the Cambodian people by banning Facebook in the country temporarily or permanently but he would not do that because it would affect people.
Still, it didn’t end there 😅 I woke up this morning to what looks like a hastily written announcement from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication dismissing a Facebook representative from Cambodia and ceasing all cooperation with the company due to “irregularities of its service and political interference”. The statement was posted on Facebook.
I will conclude this Facebook saga (this week) with a crucial point made by Ananth Baliga about a loss of 7 years worth of public records posted directly on the PM’s Facebook page with a very small chance to retrieve them. Thanks Erin Cook for mentioning this in your newsletter for me to find! I couldn’t stop thinking about those 3 items in the bibliography section of my upcoming book that lists resources pulled directly from the PM’s Facebook page, and now the links no longer exist…
I know after all that Facebook news, you may need a break so I will give you one before I go on and hit you with another heavy news item.
Kamnotra is a new database website launched recently in Cambodia. The platform consolidates public data about Cambodia making them easy to search, read, and analyse. For those living in Cambodia, you know that finding public data for anything is like looking for a needle in the ocean. So, a platform such as this plays a really important role in closing that gap. I like that Kamnotra is available in both English and Khmer and launched at the same time illustrating that Khmer users are not an afterthought. I also love their interface which is modern, vibrant and intuitive. It screams that a database website does not have to be boring.
Now that you got your little break, let’s get back to the news about the military and border. Five drones were allegedly spotted in Mondulkiri’s Koh Nhek district bordering Vietnam’s Dak Lak province. The Cambodian military personnel didn’t manage to shoot down any of the five drones on site. This incident prompted the PM to order 500 troops to be mobilised to the border in order to shoot down the drones resulting in heavy movement of military force from Phnom Penh to the province. As if it wasn’t their job to do so in the first place, the PM also announced that he would offer a cash price of $200,000 for any military unit that can shoot down the drones. No one has claimed ownership of these drones.
Lastly, we got news on an investigation into the REDD+ project in Southern Cardamom. Verra, an international organisation leading climate action and sustainable development, has opened the investigation into Cambodia’s REDD+ run by Wildlife Alliance and the Ministry of Environment due to allegations of human rights abuse in the project area. In its letter, Verra stated concerns regarding compliance with the guidelines. Failure to comply with these guidelines could lead to a suspension of REDD+ project. Read the full story by CamboJANews here.
Visually Pleasing
Arts & Culture
🏢 Phnom Penh Reimagination is a project by the Gentry Hub focusing on ideas of re-shaping and re-imagining public space in Phnom Penh making it more usable for all city dwellers. I really like their short video on reimagining one alleyway near Orussey Market.
💃 Pteah Chas is hosting a creative workshop on Khmer Classical Dance tomorrow (02 July). For those of you who are here and want to understand the dance a bit more beyond watching it, this one is for you because you will get to participate in the daily stretching routine as well. I was taught these daily stretching in primary school and I tried it again during my attempt a few years ago to learn Lakhon Khol’s giant dance routine – it definitely will test your flexibility 😁
This post is #notsponsored (I feel like I need to declare this although I’ve never been contacted for any sponsored post lol). I just like Pteah Chas and love what they do.
Campuccino is a fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia, written by @DarathteyDin.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback or content ideas, please write to me at hello@darathteydin.com
love the sarcasm