The Anti-Cybercrime Department and Information Technology Department of the Ministry of Interior has warned of legal action against Facebook users who allegedly distributed other users’ pictures with disparaging remarks through two games available on Facebook – Jumpy Jumpy and Lyto Different Color.

The deputy secretary-general of the General Department of the ministry and director of the Information Technology Department Hor Sam Ath confirmed that the two games have been causing trouble for Facebook users in Cambodia.

He said the game players can extract Facebook profile photos and post them on the games’ interfaces with immoral words displayed as their status. This, he said, can seriously affect the other users’ reputations.

“We’ve already taken action. First, we educated Facebook users to stop playing the game and sharing posts about it on their profiles.

“Then we contacted Facebook to request they withdraw the game to stop it from entering users’ accounts,” he said.

Sam Ath said for light offences in this category of crime, a firm reprimand would be sufficient. But for serious offences which infringe on others’ rights, legal action would be taken.

According to the Information Technology Department, one of the immoral statuses posted was: “Owed money, please pay back. Don’t wait until your photo is posted.”

Director of the Anti-Cybercrime Department of the General Commissariat of the National Police Chea Pov confirmed that citizens have been affected by the games.

Pov said that when users share these games, they pop up on their friends’ Facebook pages as well. If users don’t share the games, they can’t connect to the accounts.

“We provided instructions for citizens to be able to close and disconnect the games from their accounts. If they follow our guidelines, there will be no more problems.

“Most problems occurred when someone shares the games. Those who share the game and affect other peoples’ rights are committing an illegal act. If we find people doing this, they will be legally liable,” Pov said.

The Information Technology Department said all users playing these games and using them immorally should stop.

The department said for anyone experiencing problems, they can report the games as spam through its settings.

It also said users can delete this game by finding the “Instant Games” tab in the settings page and removing it.