By September 2016, the calling feature on LINE was also blocked. Since then, the government has partially or fully blocked several more applications including WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger and FaceTime. Media speculated that the move may have been motivated by the Saudi government's attempt to monitor these applications and to protect local telecom operators from revenue losses, or both. At that time, the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), which regulates telecommunications in the country, did not specify what these regulations were.
Saudi Arabia started blocking VoIP applications in June 2013 when it banned Viber for failing to comply with local regulatory requirements. In a tweet on 13 September, Saudi minister of communication and information technology Abdullah Al-Swaha announced that the ban on VoIP will be lifted within a week, a move that was welcomed by Saudi users who have been fiercely critical of the kingdom's VoIP censorship policies.
Photo shared by user apriltan18 on Pixabay under a Creative Commons Licence (CC0)Īfter more than four years of heavy censorship, Saudi Arabia has eased restrictions on the use of internet-based call and messaging (VoIP) applications.
0 kommentar(er)
