"Meta oversight board orders firm to take down video by Cambodian leader", 29 June 2023

Meta’s content moderation board has ordered the social media company to take down a video of the Cambodian prime minister threatening … with violence, and urged it to suspend his Facebook and Instagram accounts.

The oversight board, whose decisions on content are binding, overturned Meta’s decision to leave up a video on Facebook in which Hun Sen issued a number of threats. It also called for an immediate six-month suspension of Hun Sen’s Facebook page, which has 14 million followers, and his Instagram account, which has 167,000 followers.

Hun Sen, …, announced before the ruling … that he would stop using Facebook and move to the Telegram messaging service instead, although he would still use Instagram…

An initial review found the speech did not violate Meta’s content policies. A second review found the video did violate company guidelines but kept it up under Meta’s “newsworthiness allowance”, in which rule-breaking content is allowed because the public interest value outweighs the risk of it causing harm.

… Calling for changes to the newsworthiness policy, which is not a binding recommendation, the board added: “The board urges Meta to clarify that its policy on restricting the accounts of public figures is not limited solely to single incidents of violence and civil unrest, but also applies to contexts in which citizens are under continuing threat of retaliatory violence from their governments.”