AKP Phnom Penh, July 02, 2025 --

Fake News on border tension between Cambodia and Thailand has dramatically increased in the second quarter of the year, said H.E. Tep Asnarith, Undersecretary of State and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Information. 

The ministry’s Anti-Fake News Committee detected approximately 1,800 cases of fake news in the first half of 2025, while the second quarter saw an increase in the numbers, especially on the border topic, amid the ongoing Cambodia-Thailand border dispute since late May. 

H.E. Tep Asnarith told AKP that the number of fake news related to the Cambodia-Thailand border alone that the committee had recorded is more than 180 cases in the second quarter of 2025.

“This is a high number of fake news about the border tension, which has never been recorded before,” he underlined.

Among these fake news, about 10 cases have been created by AI technology, including voice impersonations of Cambodian leaders, state institutions, private individuals, and so on. All of them were used for the purpose of fraud, deception, or economic and political exploitation, and some others have affected the rights, honour, privacy, and dignity of other citizens, he added. 

The spokesperson said that in the context of the current border crisis, fake news is being distributed and published almost every day, especially on social media that unfortunately originated from some well-known press abroad.

Those media outlets and content creators have betrayed their professional conscience and failed to ensure integrity, transparency, impartiality, and balance of information in their reporting, but instead have used the media as a tool to serve the politics of some extremist groups who chose war over peace by avoiding the legal mechanism /international laws in border settlement between the two countries.

In this regard, the spokesperson called on all media practitioners and social media content creators to increase their responsibility for their reporting, post, urging strong adhering to professional ethics when sharing information on the border issue and national security, especially in time of crisis.

By Heng Panha