Social media platform Snapchat has blocked access to Al Jazeera content in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Snapchat said it was asked by the Saudi authorities to remove the Qatari-backed broadcaster’s Discover Publisher Channel because it violated local laws.<\/p>\n
Qatar is in an ongoing dispute with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE.<\/p>\n
The four countries cut ties with Qatar earlier this year, accusing the country of supporting terrorism.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s most restrictive media environments, according to human rights groups and media freedom advocates.<\/p>\n
But the Saudi authorities have a particular dislike for Al Jazeera. At one point they had demanded Qatar’s government shut it down altogether as one of\u00a013 conditions\u00a0to remove sanctions against the country.<\/p>\n
Those conditions were later withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia is one of the largest social media markets in the Middle East, boosted by a high rate of smart phone ownership.<\/p>\n
That can sometimes place US-listed companies like Snapchat’s parent Snap Inc in an awkward position, as local laws are far more restrictive than in many other markets.<\/p>\n
“We make an effort to comply with local laws in the countries where we operate,” a Snapchat spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Social media platform Snapchat has blocked access to Al Jazeera content in Saudi Arabia. Snapchat said it was asked by the Saudi authorities to remove the Qatari-backed broadcaster’s Discover Publisher Channel because it violated local laws. Qatar is in an ongoing dispute with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE. The four countries cut ties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[3,747,1082],"class_list":["post-354291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-ghana-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-snapchat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}