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Telecommunications in Saudi Arabia

Telecommunications in Saudi Arabia: Access and Freedom of Speech

The basic purpose of this paper is to explore the development of the global communication capacity within Saudi Arabia. The study includes the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the way in which the government has sought to control both access to information and egress of information.

The statement of the problem depends upon whose perspective is chosen to understand this issue. The fundamental problem with the Internet for authorities in the Middle East and elsewhere is the issue of uncontrolled information. For Saudi Arabia, the problem is that individuals with access to personal computers, and thereby the Internet, are able to gain access to information that Saudi Arabia does not wish them to have. They are able to discuss taboo subjects and participate in discussions that are forbidden to them in Saudi Arabia's strict, closed society (Ambah, 1995).

For the individual, however, the problem looks quite different. From the perspective of individuals, the problem is Saudi Arabia's attempt to deny access to information, to censor the Internet, or even eliminate access to it. Increasingly, too, the problem is Saudi Arabia's controlled society itself. The problem for the individual is that the desire to gain access to uncontrolled information is resisted, or suppressed, by the authorities. Clearly, the House of Saud is accurate in thinking that when individuals gain access to taboo information, and to space or forums where free discussion of alternatives is both allowed and encouraged, they become restless with a controlled environment that denies them these potentialities.

Thus, the problem for the Saudi authorities is to control, while the problem for the individual is to evade or remove that control. Interestingly enough, however, it is business that is actually undercutting the Saudi desire to control, because it is business that is demanding the...

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Telecommunications in Saudi Arabia. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 17:51, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691817.html