Cambodian PM Fights Back in Facebook Likes War
Newsweek | 18 March 2016
Facebook has become the new battleground for political power
in Cambodia after the prime minister was forced to deny that he has
bought fake likes for his popular page.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, 63, has amassed more than 3.2 million likes for his page, after passing the 3 million mark earlier in March. But a recent report in Cambodian national The Phnom Penh Post
claimed that, in recent months, an influx of likes had come from
outside Cambodia, raising the possibility that someone had bought likes
for the prime minister’s account to artificially boost his popularity.
The same report found that opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who went into exile
after Hun Sen called for his arrest in 2015, has garnered more social
media support from within Cambodia, with 1.83 million of his 2.2 million
likes coming from Cambodian accounts compared to 1.73 million for Hun
Sen.
The prime minister, who refers to himself as a digital dinosaur,
denied he had been involved in the process of faking his Facebook
popularity. “I don’t know where those ‘likes’ are from,” said Hun Sen on
Thursday, according to the BBC.
The Cambodian leader also referred to Rainsy as “a loser who doesn’t
agree to lose” and said he was happy that he has been “recognized by
Indian people and people in other countries.” More than 330,000 Indian
accounts like Hun Sen’s page, and India accounted for the biggest influx
of likes over the past month, according to the Phnom Penh Post
report. Large numbers of accounts from the Philippines, Myanmar and
Indonesia have also recently liked Hun Sen’s page. Facebook bans the
practice of artificially inflating likes and periodically purges fake
accounts used to boost social media presence.
An April 2015 report by Twiplomacy, which monitors world leaders’ activity on Twitter, found that Pope Francis was the most influential global leader
on the social media site, averaging more than 7,500 retweets for each
message he posts. The pope was followed by King Salman of Saudi Arabia,
who averaged more than 4,400 retweets.
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