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Cambodia's ruling party spokesman has dismissed areport that the Prime Minister inflated the number of "likes" on his Facebook page.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, of the Cambodian People’s Party, recently announced he had reached 3 million“likes” on the social media site. He joked that his popularity made him "the Facebook Prime Minister."

He joined Facebook six months ago. Hun Senappeared to have overtaken opposition leader SamRainsy’s 2.2 million likes. Sam Rainsy, head of theCambodian National Rescue Party, has been on Facebook for at least fiveyears.

Wednesday, a report released from The Phnom Penh Post newspaper saidthat only about 20 percent of Hun Sen's recently added fans were Cambodia-based users. The report noted numbers from the media analytics companysocialbakers.com.

A person uses a smartphone to look at the Facebook page of Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, during breakfast at a restaurant in central Phnom Penh. A recent newspaper report questioned whether the prime minister bought "likes" for his page.

Many of the “likes” came from countries whose citizenswould have little reason to support Cambodia’s long-time ruler. The report also said a great number of likesposted in the past 30 days came from India, thePhilippines, Burma, Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico.

The report raised the question that the prime minister might have been buying his popularity on the site.

Chok Sopheap is executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. She said she was "surprised" by the report, addingthat it raises questions about the transparency of Facebook’s "likes" function.Cambodian politicians have used Facebook “likes” to compete for popularity.

She added that a politician’s popularity should not be judged by social mediaactivity alone, but by their effectiveness as public officials.

"The real concern is that the users themselves have to understand that thenumber of likes they gain on Facebook does not [accurately] reflect theirpopularity or [whether] there’s full support for them," she said.

Nget Moses is head of the Internet technology department at Phnom Penh-based CENTRAL, an online rights advocacy group. He explained thatFacebook users could pay money to advertise their Facebook posts or page, a mechanism known as "boosting."

"We cannot use money to buy likes," he told VOA Khmer. "However, what we can do is pay money to boost our page or posts in order to reach a wider audience, as well as select where the page or the posts can be most seen.”

The expert suggested that the administrators of the Prime Minister’sFacebook Page could release reports on the page.

Sok Eysan, spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, dismissedthe report. He said the prime minister had no reason to inflate his onlinepopularity. He added that it was mostly people within the nation.

Hun Sen has been in power for more than 30 years. He recently announcedthat Cambodians can send messages directly to his Facebook page in orderto raise concerns and issues.

He also urged officials to create their own Facebook pages along withaccounts for government institutions.

Political observers said Hun Sen is hoping that he can use Facebook to gainpopularity. Important local, commune elections take place in 2017 and nationalelections are to be held the following year.

I'm Mario Ritter.

Words in This Story

inflate – v. to say something is larger or more important than it actually is

boost – v. to increase the amount of something