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Saudi Arabia Requiring License For Online Media

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the license-and-registration-please dept.

Beetle B. writes "According to Saudi Arabia's leading English newspaper, Arab News, online newspapers, blogs and forums will now need to register with the Ministry of Information and Culture for licenses to operate, according to new regulations that the ministry announced Saturday it is to introduce. Abdul Aziz Khoja, minister of information and culture, said that the system is 'in line with the development moves that the media sector is witnessing.' He added that the rules do not include any clauses restricting freedom of speech and that the ministry is eager to ensure there is transparency. He also said that the rules will be made open to improvement in the future."

7 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. No laws restricting free speech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They just revoke your license when you say something they don't like.

  2. Saudis today, the US about 5 years from now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because terrorists might run them, and we have to make sure there is accountability. We can't have an anarchy on the internet, it's too important!

    And we won't use it to restrict political views or leaks of embarrassing information.

    At first.

  3. Re:Fairness by jameskojiro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, we should limit their control over us at every turn in which they attempt to usurp more power for themselves.

    No Goverment = Anarachy = Bad

    Total Government = Totalitarinism = Bad

    Limited Government = A lot better than the above two choices.

    --
    Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
  4. Re:Fairness by makubesu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Governments are the most corrupt organizations on the planet? Yes because everyone knows that big corporations are actually run by angels and bunnies, who would never do anything wrong...

  5. Licensing and Freedom by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was growing up my buddy's dad told us a story. He talked about how he and his dad used to go out into the woods and cut firewood, fish, and hunt without a license. They just took these rights for granted. Hell, he even told us about how he shot a buck in some guy's front yard when he was a teenager. That was life back then in the sticks. Anyways, when he was younger, his dad made the comment to him that, when he got older, one would need a license to fish, hunt, and cut firewood. He also predicted that, eventually, you would only be allowed to do these things in certain, designated parts of the wilderness, rather than anywhere the road ended in bush.

    Anyways, those predictions have come true, at least here in the California. That always stuck with me and got me thinking. I have ten bucks that says, when I am my roomate's dad's age, you'll need a license to upload most, if not all, content that you want to the internet. You might require a license to legally access the internet at all. You'll be required to get a license to allow you to consume alcohol, if it's not prohibited outright. And you'll need a license to run a wireless networking node, you know, so that you can't set up a shady mesh network that is not policed.

    So those are my predictions for the next 20 years. Every time I see a story like this from Saudi Arabia, China, or, hell, even places like Australia with their internet censorship boogeyman that their government keeps bringing up, I just figure that the U.S. will wait a year or two before enacting those same policies here. I'm so sick of this bullshit about living in the land of the free but continually watching our freedoms get sold to the highest bidder. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but mark my words, the internet will be licensed in the U.S. before long.

    Oh, one more, if 3D printing becomes cheap and accessible, you'll be required to get a manufacturing license to produce anything. That one will get enacted under the name of that God-foresaken commerce clause.

    --
    Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
    1. Re:Licensing and Freedom by Angst+Badger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyways, when he was younger, his dad made the comment to him that, when he got older, one would need a license to fish, hunt, and cut firewood. He also predicted that, eventually, you would only be allowed to do these things in certain, designated parts of the wilderness, rather than anywhere the road ended in bush.

      Some of this is just population growth. Fishing licenses have always struck me as silly, at least for non-commercial fishermen using poles instead of nets. But when it comes to hunting and felling trees, if everyone was allowed unlimited access, we'd run out of trees and deer pretty damn quick, just like we did with the buffalo. Licensing just prevents (or at least delays) the tragedy of the commons.

      If there were fewer of us, as their were in our grandparents' day, we could probably go back to having fewer restrictions. Of course, to get there, we'd need to start licensing reproduction.

      --
      Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
  6. Hardly Surprising by UdoKeir · · Score: 5, Informative

    The content in Saudi Arabia's domestic mass media is under the control of the government, having to pass through censors before it makes it on air or in print. Furthermore, while the press is said to be privately owned, the editor-in-chief of each newspaper is appointed by the government.

    From: http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall09/jawad_n/traditionalmedia.html

    Traditional media is already under government control. Thousands of people producing online media are less easy to control, so they're only handing out licenses to those individuals they approve of.