New technology brings new challenges. Saudi Arabia, with a society that is close and closed, has been grappling with how social media—texting, sites like Facebook, peer-to-peer communications and the like—are disrupting traditions that kept most things in life private.
Arab News reports that BlackBerry’s ‘Messenger’ service, which permits the transfer of various media directly from phone to phone, may be curtailed in the Kingdom due, apparently, to misuse. The closure seems to be the alternative to permitting government to access all such transfers.
BlackBerry Messenger ‘faces closure’
RIMA AL-MUKHTAR | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Subscribers might soon be saying bye-bye to the BlackBerry — at least if they use the phone because of its unique messaging service.
“If I lose this service I would sell my BlackBerry,” said Jawaher Abbar, a college student in Jeddah. “Why would I keep it? I bought it especially for this service.”
Local media reports say the Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has asked Canada-based Research In Motion, the company that owns the popular mobile device, to allow the telecommunications regulator access to monitor messages sent by BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM. BBM is a special messaging service for BlackBerry phone users. For a monthly flat fee, BlackBerry owners can share messages, IM and multimedia with other BlackBerry owners.
Rumors have been spreading that the BBM service will stop on Saturday. The CITC was unavailable for comment on Thursday.
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz, meanwhile, reports that a District court verdict that condemned a man to prison and lashings has been overturned. The Appeals Court ruled that a print-out of a Facebook page was not sufficient evidence to show that the individual had actually done that of which he was accused. Courts should be wary, the Appeals Court said, of trying to deal with technologies that lay outside their expertise and need to call in experts to explain what is (or is not) going on.
The senior Saudi courts seem to be recognizing that traditional law interpretation and methods of resolving issues are wanting and need to be revised as part of the ongoing legal reform.
Facebook prison and lashings overturned
Talal LabanMAKKAH – The Appeals Court in Makkah has overturned the conviction of a man accused by his mother-in-law of “harassing” two of her daughters and “damaging their reputations” by publishing photographs of them on the internet site Facebook.
The 32-year-old man had been sentenced to three months in prison and 45 lashes of the whip by the District Court in Makkah following a 75-day investigation conducted by the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution based on the mother-in-law’s complaint, but the Appeals Court overruled the sentence based on evidence brought by the defendant’s lawyer, Ibrahim Zamzami.
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March:06:2010 - 02:38
The CITC continue their inexplicable crusade to alienate telecom users. First it was them outlawing free roaming services (being fought in court as we speak), and now this. For once the telecom companies are sounding like the good guys here! We can hope that the potential of massive harm to their revenue will make them put a stop to CITC’s growing incursions.
March:06:2010 - 06:19
CITC is asking for permission to monitor the messages? I can’t imagine that Research in Motion would agree to that. Why would anyone have a BB if their messages can be monitored?
This society has to let people grow up. Of course anything can be misused, but when you essentially keep people in a cage, they often break out in not the wisest ways once they get the chance. But further tightening/securing the cage is not the answer. That has always been the substitute for educating and/or parenting. And ultimately it’s the lazy answer that doesn’t really work.
March:06:2010 - 15:22
HAHA! yet another example of this despotic country’s increasingly pathetic attempts to control.