We all are demanding for freedom of speech. If we take a look on few big defacements of past few months, we will came to know that countries which are trying to ban freedom of speech are facing big troubles. These countries also not allowing various VoIP services because these services are free to all and allows users communicate easily. So, these companies ban such kind of services and social media websites. Recent threat is coming from Saudi Arabia where government has decided to bad instant messaging and VoIP calling services including Skype, WhatsApp, and Viber.
Viber,Whatsapp,Skype do not allow their customers’ data to be monitored by the government agencies. In Saudi Arabia, these companies refused to read or intercept messages of users. So, Saudi Arabia threatens to ban all VoIP communication services in the country. Government wants these services to follow the regulations set by the government of the country.
Saudi Arabian Communications and Information Technology Commission issued a statement that said, “The Commission emphasizes that it will take appropriate action regarding these applications and services in the event of failure to meet those conditions.”
Saudi Arabia authorities did not directly say the main reason behind this ban. But this is not the first time when a service is facing the issue. We have already seen that country banned Blackberry. In 2010 COuntry banned Blackberry’s popular messaging service temporarily over the use of encryption. Later a deal between RIM and the Saudi government allowed BlackBerry to continue the service. But the details of the deal had never been released in media for general public.
According to local news of the country, Skype, WhatsApp, and Viber are still working on the country and no response have been made from officials of any of these companies.
