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Elon Musk’s X has become the latest major US social media company to block the accounts of Saudi Arabian dissidents so they are no longer visible inside the kingdom, following orders from Saudi authorities.
Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that platforms including Snapchat and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram had blocked dissidents’ accounts over allegations by Saudi authorities that they were violating local law.
At the time, X, formerly Twitter, said it had notified users that it had not taken any action following requests by Saudi authorities, and it “strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users”.
However, since mid-July more than 60 accounts on the platform have been made unavailable in Saudi Arabia through geoblocking, which prevents users inside the kingdom from viewing the content, according to the London-based human rights organisation ALQST.
Those affected include Yahya Assiri, a Saudi human rights activist who runs ALQST, and Abdullah Alaoudh, a US-based activist and vocal critic of Saudi human rights violations. Others affected include exiled activists, Saudi academics and independent media.
Alaoudh, a senior policy adviser for Gulf issues at the American Committee for Middle East Rights, said: “I think it’s horrible because we were fighting tyrants back home and now we’re fighting tyrants and their cronies here where we are in exile.
“It’s censorship – and what’s even worse is that they did not say we violated X’s rules or Meta’s rules.”
Account holders received emails from X informing them that their content had been withheld in the kingdom “in order to comply with X’s obligations under Saudi Arabia’s local laws”.
A Saudi decree attached to the letters and seen by the Guardian said the accounts had transmitted material that “infringes on public order, religious values, public morals or the sanctity of private life”.
Abdullah Aljuraywi, a monitoring and campaigns officer at ALQST, whose X account was also blocked inside the kingdom, said: “The news was sadly not very surprising, given that the authorities have a long history of silencing criticism at home and treating Saudis who speak out from abroad, especially those still connected to people inside the country, as a threat.
“What is even more concerning is that technology companies have helped enable this suppression, instead of protecting the freedom of speech they often say they support.”
ALQST has called on X, Meta, Snapchat and YouTube to restore access to the accounts and provide transparency over how the decisions were reached.
Meta previously told the Guardian that when it received reports of content violating local law but not the company’s own community standards, the company may restrict the content’s availability in the country where it was alleged to be unlawful.
X and the Saudi embassy in London have been approached for comment.
Other accounts targeted include those of Ghanem al-Masarir, a prominent Saudi satirist. Earlier this year a British court ordered Saudi Arabia to pay him £3m in damages after his iPhones were hacked and he was physically attacked outside Harrods in central London.
In May, al-Masarir was notified by YouTube that two of his accounts, with more than 800,000 subscribers combined, would be blocked in the kingdom after legal complaints made from a “government entity”. YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.
The same month, X emailed al-Masarir informing him of the request from Saudi authorities alleging that his account violated Saudi law, with an attached decree. By July, the company had notified al-Masarir that his content had been withheld in the kingdom to comply with local laws.
“I’m not surprised that Saudi has asked to block, but I’m surprised Elon Musk has listened,” al-Masarir said. He predicted “other authoritarian countries around the world” would follow suit.
