Recent years have also seen an upswing of surveillance and persecution of Lao citizens for critical comments posted online. A representative case was the September 2019 arrest of the social media influencer Houayheuang Xayabouly, then 30, also known as Muay, who was detained after she posted a video on Facebook criticizing the government’s delayed response to floods caused by a dam collapse. She was subsequently sentenced to five years imprisonment.