Cambodia Hun Sen himself is an avid Facebook user and has used the platform to push propaganda about himself, as well as to threaten the opposition. Hun Sen’s page is a potent political tool, given that Facebook is the most popular social media platform in Cambodia. The regime’s supporters have also aided the page by amplifying its messages on their own Facebook accounts. The Oversight Board, a body set up to decide on challenging content issues, suggested to suspend Hun Sen for posts that incite violence. Meta, which owns Facebook, later overturned the Board’s decision. The provisional suspension order led Hun Sen to move to other social media platforms, which have a lesser reach than Facebook. Aside from using Facebook, the regime has also been alleged to use a cyber army to manipulate the information on many social media platforms. After many opposition activists were arrested and detained during the election period, some later defected to the ruling party. A common pattern observed in these defections is for these former opposition activists to post an apology to Hun Sen and describe how their parties failed to support them during their arrest and detention. With the defection, they were also offered a government position by the regime, as well as given other benefits. Predictably, the election resulted in a landslide victory for the CPP, which won 120 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly. Following the election, Hun Sen stepped down from the premiership to allow his eldest son, Hun Manet, to become the new Prime Minister of Cambodia. 2. Legal and Policy Developments Given the close relationship between Cambodia and China, the country seems to follow how the latter communist government controls cyberspace. In 2021, the government issued Sub-Decree No.23 on the Establishment of National Internet Gateway (NIG). The NIG mirrors an element of China’s so-called Great Firewall, a sophisticated system used by the Chinese government to censor and monitor the internet. If implemented, the NIG will give the government all control over online traffic to facilitate surveillance and censorship. The project was set to be put in place in 2022 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The attempt to establish the NIG was considered to be part of efforts by the regime to help gain more control over the 2023 election. However, implementing a sophisticated system like the China’s Great Firewall would not be simple. The Great Firewall itself has taken years before reaching its current state. Also, Cambodia is limited from exactly copying a system similar to China’s due to the different technology environment. China uses homegrown technology and infrastructure from domestic companies including Huawei, Tencent, Baidu, and ByteDance that have a close relationship with the 25