Manama: Saudi Arabia is looking amending its anti-cybercrime law to allow legal proceedings against sites and networks that promote alleged sexual depravation, prostitution and atheism and target the Saudi society, according to reports.
Consultative Council Member Fayez Al Shehri told London-based Al Hayat that there are 25,000 accounts dedicated to homosexuality and child prostitution and 4,500 accounts devoted to promoting atheism that are targeting Saudis directly.
Al Shehri, a researcher and consultant in new media uses, said that social media, network sites and microblogs were responsible for what is published and therefore legal procedures could be launched against them if they did not review their policy.
He said that he concluded that Saudis were targeted after he analysed several accounts mainly on Twitter and studied the messages and the dialect used.
Al Shehri attributed the timing of the “systematic campaign” to the divergences and clashes of intellectual movements in the Saudi society and pointed out that the online accounts that promoted homosexuality and incest had Saudi names and used Saudi expressions.
He added that he concluded that the online accounts were part of a carefully planned “cultural war”, and had nothing to do with commercial gains.
According to the new media expert, clips showing “sexually depraved” content or denigrating religion were displayed or mentioned on more than 700 accounts at the same time and “in a systematic way”.
According to Al Shehri, the anti-religion accounts and sites are carefully managed by people who are highly knowledgeable about confusing young minds and influencing them through well prepared arguments and counter-arguments to erode their self-confidence and their trust in local values and social norms.
Developments in the Arab world are also exploited to win over the hearts and minds of the victims, he said.
