"Saudi authorities have stepped up their crackdown on online dissidents, Human Rights Watch said, alleging that prosecutors and judges use "vague law" to charge citizens for peaceful tweets and social media comments.
The New York-based rights organisation on Sunday called on the government to end the crackdown and live up to its obligations to respect free speech.
Three prominent lawyers were convicted of criticising the Justice Ministry last month and sentenced to prison terms of between five and eight years." (Al Jazeera)
We all know that social media sites, such as Twitter, is a place were people can voice their opinions and tweet just about anything online, but what if you could not just tweet about anything online. What if the government prevented you from having your free speech online through your social media outlets. What would you do? Would you call it unfair or a violation of your freedom of speech?
Do you think that rules in the real world should apply to the virtual world as well?
In Saudi Arabia, the government has been cracking down on people who are opposing the government's official policy. Many people state that they are just peaceful tweets that they are just posting online that reflect their opinion. According to the government they are instead violating a law that prevents people from posting tweets that go against the governments official policy. Several people have already been caught and prosecuted by the law for their online tweets against the official policy.
This is a really interesting post. Social media, for good or for bad, has been such a crucial tool for that region. Whether used to start a revolution or to garner up support for extremist groups, social media in general has been a great facilitator. Yes the move by the Saudi's infringes on a persons freedoms and liberties, but with ISIS in the region using social media as their main way of contacting people some may understand where the Saudi's are coming from. Im not saying I agree with it, but in a region that is constantly plagued with extremist groups, technology and social media have become their enemy. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI say depending on what type of speech it is. If you want to sit there and make threats to someone via Twitter then that is not a protected speech under the First Amendment. However, I feel as though when you do voice any form of speech via social media then you should always make sure that you are displaying a form of speech protected in the Constitution.
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