A newspaper says Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen might have paid for “likes” on his Facebook page.

    

 From VOA learning English. This is the technology report. Prime Minister Hun Sen of the Cambodian People's Party joined the online social media site Facebook three months ago. It recently he announced he had 3 million likes on his Facebook page. 

Now, Cambodia's ruling party spokesman has dismissed a report that the prime minister unfairly increased his number of Facebook likes. Huonsen appears to have overtaken opposition leader Sam Rungxi's 2.2 million likes. 

Rangsi, head of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, has been on Facebook for at least five years. A report released by the Panam Penn Post newspaper said that only about 20% of Hunsen's likes were Cambodia based users. 

Many of the likes came from people outside the country. The report raised the question that the prime minister might have been buying his support on the site. Nier Mosaic is head of the Internet technology department at an online rights advocacy group. 

He explains that Facebook users can pay money. To advertise their Facebook page, a method known as Boosting. Chuk Sopiyap is executive director of the Cambodian center for human Rights. She says that a politician's popularity should not be judged by social media activity, but by their work as public officials. 

Huonsen has been in power for more than 30 years. Political observers say Huonsen is hoping that he can use Facebook to gain popularity. Important local and national elections will be held in Cambodia in 2017 and 2018. 

For VOA learning English. I'm Jonathan Evans.