PHNOM PENH: Prime Minister Hun Sen deleted his Facebook account last night, which had over 14 million followers, citing fraudulent use of his account and likeness. He will now be using his Telegram channel as a primary means of social media communication.

On the night of June 29, the PM released a message on his Telegram channel saying, "I have decided to completely stop using Facebook, which has more than 14 million followers. I asked my assistant to delete my Facebook account immediately and to tell Facebook to remove my name from its list." He confirmed that from now on, any Facebook page using the name Hun Sen is fake. He instructed the public to follow his Telegram channel from now on for official information and comments. This morning he praised Telegram’s ease and speed in disseminating messages and said that while he respects Facebook policies, the platform did not seem to care about the problems caused by his critics.

He also created an official TikTok account this week, which already has nearly 30,000 followers. However, two users had already created accounts in his name, one of which has over 300,000 followers and more than 4 million likes. The other has 1.2 million followers and over 12 million likes. The PM announced he will choose one of the account users to be his assistant on the app.

This morning he announced that he would like to take over the account with 314 thousand followers. On his Telegram channel he said, "If you hear the call, please come out and join me. I will cancel my new TikTok account and use the old one with my name on it." Whoever runs the TikTok account will be partnered with the Prime Minister’s personal assistant Duong Dara to manage the account.