Internet & Online Safety - Saudi Arabia

The CST maintains nationwide filtering infrastructure blocking content across more than 90 categories — including political dissent, human rights groups, and LGBT+ material; Freedom House classifies the country 'Not Free' (25/100) in Freedom on the Net 2025.

Royal Decree M/17 (2007) criminalizes producing or transmitting content harming public order, religious values or public morals, with penalties up to five years' imprisonment and fines up to SAR 3 million; it is routinely used to prosecute peaceful online expression with lengthy sentences.

Under the CST's Regulations for Providing Digital Content Platform Services (compliance deadline 8 Oct 2024), local and international platforms — social media, video-sharing, e-sports, OTT, online gaming — must register/license; social/video/e-sports platforms with 100,000+ users must register and appoint a local liaison officer.

The General Authority for Media Regulation requires anyone earning revenue from advertising/promotional content on social media to hold a 'Mawthooq' permit (≈SAR 15,000 for three years); operating without a license can draw fines up to SAR 5 million.

The Audiovisual Media Law (Royal Decree M/33, 2017) requires all audiovisual media services — including OTT, VOD, IPTV and streaming — to be licensed by GAMR, with strict content-moderation standards (modesty, religious and national-image rules) and 90-day content-retention obligations.

Authorities monitor social media, pressure users to delete posts, and impose multi-decade sentences for online expression; VPN use is not explicitly illegal but Tor and major VPN provider sites are blocked, and roughly 30% of users rely on VPNs to evade filtering.