Difference between revisions of "Censorship in Saudi Arabia"

Revision as of 21:45, 27 January 2023

Introduction

The Saudi Arabian government has effectively controlled media operations within the country through the legal enforcement of censorship laws. The country’s political and cultural landscape has been heavily influenced by these regulations for multiple decades, however, the laws have evolved with the progression of developments in technology. Saudi Arabia is officially a Muslim nation and is generally known as being conservative. Interpretations of Islamic texts have commonly influenced the lawmaking process and the Kingdom’s constitution is the Quran. The “main agent of censorship” in the country is the Ministry of Media, and this organization has the responsibility for ensuring what they deem as appropriate information is the only type circulated. The different forms of media that are impacted by Saudi Arabia’s media suppression include but are not limited to newspapers, magazines, books, films, television, social media content on multiple platforms, and the usage of Virtual Private Networks (VPN). Censorship in media can potentially have repercussions on expressionism and human rights, as well as hinder economic activity.

History

In 1994, state institutions originally had Internet connectivity and three years later King Fahd approved it for the public. After its approval in 1997, in January 1999 is when Saudi Arabia initially permitted the public to utilize the Internet usage through local service providers. The gap of two years between approval and usage was largely due to the authoritative control that the state was attempting to impose on information usage and circulation. The development and deployment of a system to control the information flow was not a constraint but did require time and investment. Upon this permission, it was promised that the future state would present a committed mission toward prohibiting objectionable data online. Internet access for people in the region retrieving it was heavily regulated and only offered usage to educational, medicinal, and research institutions. The population was free to purchase the systems and computers to enable connectivity through dial-up services to international ISPs, though this was quite expensive. Despite this constraint, 30,000 residents were taking advantage of the Internet using this process. This also introduced correspondence and communication via email and chat rooms on a global scale, though the World Wide Web was not available. A committee was implemented by Saudi Arabia in order to shelter the nation from content that would later be prohibited. Content that would pose offense to the nation, the contradiction to Islam, or controversy about the government and those in command were examples of what was regarded as immoral. Data was strictly monitored to avoid violations of Islam, Arab culture, customs, traditions, etc. Firewalls were created and deployed as a systematic prevention of the abuse of the Internet. Examples of these sites included gambling, pornographic sites, violence, defamatory press, etc. An officially sanctioned list was even created rather than having users type a URL of a site. Any user that chose to attempt to gain access to a restricted site was quickly presented with a warning screen for logging off that attempt. This was the beginning of the long series of prohibitions placed by the Saudi government on its users of the Internet.

Existing Laws and Regulations

As of January 2021, there have been reports of 39.5 million mobile subscribers. This significant and exceedingly fast growth has contributed towards the development of an infrastructure that could properly allocate resources and quality internet connections, thus not limiting the speed and quality. However, Saudi Arabia does exercise technical control over the entirety of their internet organization to limit connection. There have been a position taken against low-cost or no-cost Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) amenities such as WhatsApp, Viber, Facetime, and Facebook Messenger. The motives for restricting access to Voice over Internet Protocol have never been officially relayed to the public, rather identified through a two-year study completed at the University of California, Riverside. As it stands, Saudi remains on the path it historically set to strictly restrict and block content and material that is protected by international committees’ human rights standards. Again, defamatory, and harmful commentary about the royal family, Islam, or negative press that contained information about political tensions are all banned. There are over 500,000 websites that were blocked in 2020, found Jordanian digital marketing consultancy. Violent content, pornographic content, drugs, gambling, several music channels considered provocative, sports channels, pro-Damascus, pro-choice, human rights sites, and social media groups dedicated to human rights are still banned today. The Committee does not require consent to remove or block posted content, and residents/citizens that post this may be held legally liable for initiating posts. Regarding the topic of transparency, blocked organizations or websites and nonconsensual content removals are not publicly listed. There are generic error displays if a citizen/resident were to attempt to acquire access to these websites, however, there is no way of identifying this information from a list or publicly issued digital transparency report. This causes self-censorship. Different topics considered taboo, or previously mentioned blocks are known within the region, and users are faced with the threat of improvement if the decision is made to violate. An “electronic army” exists to prevent the use of previously listed violations and to identify reports so that they can be fined, imprisoned, or both.

Conclusion

The government of Saudi Arabia has a historical record of censoring websites and internet usage. This directly impacts social media platforms, streaming service platforms, organizational data, social media usage, press that is permitted to be published, etc. Since the beginning of the usage of the Internet, there have been developments and will likely continue to be developments legally as there are innovative systems, hardware, and complexities that all impact the lawmaking process. Citizens and residents both practice self-censorship, and there is also an existing Committee responsible for the regulation of digital footprints and media.