A Longitudinal Study on Digital Filtering in Saudi Arabia

Abstract In the space of Internet filtering, we make a rare positive observation: Saudi Arabia has been opening its digital borders since 2017 in a deliberate new era towards openness. Internet filtering is routinely used by institutions to restrict access to websites and services that promote content that is deemed inappropriate with respect to governing laws, values, or policies. Here, we present a comprehensive longitudinal study of digital filtering, which we define to include both mobile apps and website access, in Saudi Arabia over a period of three years. Our results show that Saudi Arabia has indeed made significant progress towards opening its digital borders: (a) the use of mobile applications has been significantly permitted; and (b) web access has become more open. Specifically, we monitor access to: (a) 18 social media and communications mobile apps such as WhatsApp, Facetime, and Skype; and (b) Alexa’s top 500 websites in 18 different categories. First, we find that our mobile app group was completely blocked in 2017, but access was permitted to 67% in 2018, 93% in 2019, and all, except WeChat, in 2020. Second, we conduct measurements from multiple vantage points covering the three largest telecommunications companies in Saudi Arabia: Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Mobily (owned by Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates), and Zain (from Kuwait), and four major cities in Saudi Arabia: Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah, and Al-Khobar. Our results show that Internet filtering decreased by 3.4% and 2.2% in Adult and Shopping respectively, which are the most two blocked categories. Finally, we find that changes in the filtering policy reflect the wider geopolitical dynamics of the region. For instance, we find that filtering rules emerge for: (a) ISIS-friendly sites in 2020, and (b) news sites from Qatar in 2017, Iran in 2018, and Turkey in 2020, in response to diplomatic tensions. Finally, we investigate and characterize the technical mechanisms and the network topology used in the implementation of the filtering.