Media Freedom in Saudi Arabia: Censorship, State Control, and the Information Landscape Before Expo 2030

When Saudi Arabia hosts Expo 2030 beginning in October of that year, the kingdom will welcome an estimated 42 million visitors, thousands of international journalists, and unprecedented global media scrutiny. The information environment they will encounter—what can be published, who controls the narrative, what questions can be asked publicly—is shaped by one of the most comprehensive media control systems in the world. Saudi Arabia’s approach to media freedom sits at the intersection of traditional authoritarian censorship, sophisticated digital surveillance, ambitious state-funded content production, and a social media landscape where a single tweet can result in decades of imprisonment. Understanding this landscape is essential for anyone seeking to engage with the kingdom’s Expo narrative critically and honestly.

Press Freedom Rankings: Saudi Arabia in Global Context

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the leading international press freedom organization, consistently ranks Saudi Arabia among the most restrictive media environments on the planet. In its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, Saudi Arabia ranked 166th out of 180 countries—placing it in the bottom tier alongside countries like China, Iran, North Korea, and Eritrea. This ranking reflects the absence of independent media, the criminalization of journalism that criticizes the government, the imprisonment of journalists and bloggers, and the chilling effect of the Khashoggi murder on reporting about the kingdom.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has identified Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, with multiple reporters, bloggers, and online commentators serving long prison sentences for speech-related offenses. The cases documented by CPJ include journalists sentenced for social media posts, opinion columns, and reporting on topics deemed politically sensitive. The sentences imposed—often measured in decades rather than years—reflect a penal approach to journalism that is designed to deter not just the individual but the entire media ecosystem.

Freedom House’s 2024 assessment gave Saudi Arabia a score of 2 out of 4 for “Freedom of Expression and Belief”—one of the lowest scores in the organization’s global survey. The assessment cited the absence of an independent press, the prosecution of online speech, the monitoring of social media, and the systematic suppression of dissenting voices as defining characteristics of the Saudi media environment.

The Structure of State Media Control

Saudi Arabia’s media ecosystem is organized around a principle of comprehensive state oversight. The Ministry of Media, established in its current form in 2018, exercises regulatory authority over all forms of media including print, broadcast, digital, and social media. All media outlets operating in Saudi Arabia require government licensing, and the licensing process functions as a gatekeeping mechanism that ensures editorial alignment with state priorities.

The major Saudi media organizations are either state-owned or owned by individuals and entities closely aligned with the government. Saudi Broadcasting Authority (SBA) operates the kingdom’s state television and radio networks. The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) serves as the official news agency, providing the government’s authorized version of events. Major private media organizations, including the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC Group) and Rotana Media Group, are owned by members of the royal family or their close associates. The acquisition of MBC by PIF-affiliated entities in recent years has further consolidated the alignment between the media sector and state economic interests.

Print media—historically the most diverse segment of the Saudi media landscape—has been brought under tighter control since 2017. Newspapers and magazines that once featured relatively independent commentary have been subject to editorial pressure, ownership changes, and, in some cases, closure. Self-censorship among Saudi journalists has intensified, with reporters and editors acutely aware that the boundaries of acceptable coverage can shift without warning and that the consequences of crossing those boundaries are severe.

The Saudi media landscape also includes a significant international dimension. The kingdom funds or influences media operations abroad, including Arabic-language satellite channels, English-language outlets, and digital platforms that project Saudi perspectives to global audiences. Al Arabiya, the Riyadh-based Arabic-language news channel, serves as a counterpart to Qatar’s Al Jazeera and provides coverage that generally aligns with Saudi government positions. Asharq Al-Awsat, the Saudi-owned Arabic-language newspaper published in London, is one of the most widely read Arabic publications globally.

Digital Media and Social Media: The New Battleground

Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of social media penetration in the world. Approximately 82 percent of the population is active on social media platforms, with Twitter (now X), Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube being the most popular. The kingdom has the highest per capita use of YouTube globally, and Saudi users are among the most active Twitter populations worldwide. This digital engagement makes social media the primary information environment for most Saudi citizens—and consequently, the primary target of government monitoring and control.

The Saudi government’s approach to social media combines active engagement with aggressive enforcement. Government entities and officials maintain prominent social media presences, using platforms to disseminate official narratives, promote Vision 2030 achievements, and engage with citizens. The government has invested heavily in digital content production, with Saudi-produced social media content increasingly sophisticated in its production quality and messaging.

Simultaneously, the government employs extensive surveillance of social media platforms and prosecutes individuals for online speech that is deemed critical of the government, the royal family, or national policies. The Anti-Cyber Crime Law (2007) and the Counter-Terrorism Law (2014) provide the legal framework for prosecuting online speech, with provisions broad enough to criminalize virtually any expression of dissent. The sentences imposed under these laws have been among the harshest in the world for speech-related offenses.

The cases of Salma al-Shehab (sentenced to 34 years for tweets supporting women’s rights) and Nourah al-Qahtani (sentenced to 45 years for social media activity) represent the most extreme manifestations of this enforcement approach. These sentences, handed down by the Specialized Criminal Court, are designed to send a clear message: social media is monitored, dissent is detected, and the consequences are devastating.

The government has also been accused of deploying sophisticated influence operations on social media, including the use of bot networks and coordinated inauthentic behavior to amplify pro-government narratives and suppress criticism. Former Twitter employees were charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2019 with spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia, accessing the personal information of Twitter users who were critics of the Saudi government. The case revealed the extent to which the Saudi state was willing to penetrate technology companies to identify and target dissidents.

The Khashoggi Effect: A Permanent Chill

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 fundamentally altered the media freedom landscape in and around Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi was not merely a journalist—he was a prominent, internationally connected Saudi media figure whose columns in The Washington Post directly criticized MBS’s consolidation of power. His murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul demonstrated that no journalist, regardless of their international profile or the platform they wrote for, was beyond the reach of the Saudi state.

The impact on Saudi journalism was immediate and lasting. Journalists who had maintained even modest independence in their reporting pulled back further into self-censorship. Saudi commentators living abroad became acutely aware of their vulnerability. The message was received not just by Saudi media professionals but by the broader international journalism community: reporting critically on Saudi Arabia carried risks that went beyond visa denials and source difficulties.

For international media, the Khashoggi case created a paradox. On one hand, it generated an unprecedented volume of critical reporting about Saudi Arabia, MBS, and the kingdom’s human rights record. On the other hand, it made international journalists more cautious about reporting from within Saudi Arabia, knowing that their sources could face severe consequences and that the kingdom’s surveillance capabilities were extensive. The net effect has been an information environment where reporting about Saudi Arabia is increasingly dependent on exile sources, leaked documents, and intelligence assessments rather than on-the-ground journalism within the kingdom.

The Legal Framework: Laws That Criminalize Speech

Saudi Arabia’s legal framework for media regulation is built on a series of laws that, taken together, give the state virtually unlimited authority to prosecute speech and publication. The key legal instruments include the Basic Law of Governance, the Press and Publications Law, the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, the Counter-Terrorism Law, and the Anti-Harassment Law—each of which contains provisions that can be applied to media-related activities.

The Press and Publications Law requires all publications to be licensed by the Ministry of Media and prohibits content that is deemed to threaten national unity, serve foreign interests, or undermine the reputation of the state. The law’s vague language gives authorities wide discretion in determining what constitutes a violation. The Anti-Cyber Crime Law, enacted in 2007 and subsequently amended, criminalizes the production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material that is deemed to affect public order, religious values, public morals, or personal privacy. The law provides for prison sentences of up to five years and fines of up to SAR 3 million.

The Counter-Terrorism Law, passed in 2014 and amended in 2017, defines terrorism in terms broad enough to encompass nonviolent speech and advocacy. The law criminalizes “calling for atheist thought,” “attempting to throw doubt on the fundamentals of the Islamic religion,” and “anyone who challenges, either directly or indirectly, the integrity of the King or Crown Prince.” The use of counterterrorism legislation to prosecute speech offenses has been repeatedly condemned by international human rights organizations and UN human rights mechanisms.

These laws operate within a judicial system that lacks the independence necessary to provide meaningful checks on executive authority. The Specialized Criminal Court, which handles terrorism and national security cases, has become the primary venue for prosecuting speech-related offenses. Trials before the SCC are often conducted in secret, defendants may be denied access to lawyers during interrogation, and the evidentiary standards applied have been criticized as failing to meet international fair trial standards.

Media Coverage of Vision 2030 and Mega-Projects

The domestic media coverage of Vision 2030 and its associated mega-projects follows a pattern of enthusiastic promotion with minimal critical scrutiny. Saudi media outlets provide extensive, positive coverage of project announcements, construction milestones, international partnerships, and economic data that support the narrative of transformation. Coverage of setbacks—the suspension of NEOM construction, the scaling back of Red Sea Global’s Phase Two, the $8 billion PIF write-down on giga-projects—is either absent or framed in the most favorable terms possible.

This media environment creates a significant information gap between the narrative presented to Saudi citizens and the reality documented by international media and financial analysts. Saudi citizens reading domestic media would encounter a story of uninterrupted progress and achievement. International observers, drawing on sources including Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and investigative journalists, encounter a more complex picture that includes project delays, budget overruns, strategic pivots, and financial pressures.

The gap matters because it affects public expectations, investor confidence, and the accountability mechanisms that function—however imperfectly—in more open media environments. When media cannot freely report on project challenges, the feedback loops that help governments adjust course are weakened. The pragmatic pivot that Saudi Arabia undertook in 2025-2026—suspending NEOM, refocusing on Expo 2030 and the World Cup 2034—was driven primarily by fiscal reality and international financial market pressure rather than domestic public discourse, because the domestic media environment did not generate the kind of critical discussion that might have prompted earlier course corrections.

International Media Operations and Soft Power

Saudi Arabia has invested significantly in international media operations designed to project a positive image of the kingdom to global audiences. These efforts include direct media investments, content production, advertising, partnerships with international media organizations, and the use of public relations firms and lobbying organizations.

The kingdom has become one of the largest advertisers in international news publications, with government-funded advertisements promoting Vision 2030, tourism, and investment opportunities appearing regularly in major international newspapers and magazines. While such advertising is a standard practice for countries seeking to attract tourism and investment, critics argue that the scale of Saudi advertising spending creates commercial incentives that may influence editorial decisions at publications that depend on advertising revenue.

Saudi Arabia has also hosted numerous international media events, press trips, and conferences designed to showcase the kingdom’s transformation to foreign journalists. These events typically provide carefully curated access to projects, officials, and citizens willing to speak positively about the changes underway. Independent access—the ability of journalists to move freely, choose their own interview subjects, and report without minders—remains limited.

The Expo 2030 itself will represent the ultimate test of Saudi Arabia’s media management capabilities on an international stage. The six-month event will attract thousands of international journalists, and the Saudi government will need to balance its desire for positive coverage with the inevitable scrutiny that accompanies any event of this scale. The approach taken to media access at the Expo—whether international journalists will be able to report freely on topics beyond the event itself, whether they will have access to workers, citizens, and civil society representatives, and whether critical reporting will be tolerated—will be closely watched by press freedom organizations.

Digital Surveillance and the Information Environment

Saudi Arabia has built one of the most sophisticated digital surveillance systems in the Middle East, combining domestic monitoring capabilities with the acquisition of international surveillance technology. The kingdom’s investment in surveillance technology enables the monitoring of social media platforms, mobile communications, and internet activity at a scale that creates a comprehensive picture of online discourse.

The use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware has been documented by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which identified Saudi Arabia as a customer of the surveillance technology. Pegasus enables the complete compromise of a target’s smartphone, providing access to messages, calls, emails, photos, location data, and even the ability to activate the device’s microphone and camera remotely. The deployment of Pegasus against Saudi dissidents abroad—including individuals in Khashoggi’s circle—has been documented in detail.

Beyond commercial spyware, the Saudi government maintains domestic surveillance capabilities including deep packet inspection, social media monitoring systems, and intelligence-gathering operations focused on domestic dissent. Internet service providers in Saudi Arabia are required to route traffic through government-controlled infrastructure, enabling monitoring and filtering. VPN usage, while common, is officially regulated, and the government has periodically blocked VPN services.

The cumulative effect of this surveillance infrastructure is a population that is aware of being monitored and adjusts its behavior accordingly. Saudi citizens commonly describe practicing extensive self-censorship online, avoiding political topics, and using coded language to discuss sensitive subjects. The surveillance apparatus does not need to prosecute every individual who expresses dissent—its effectiveness lies in the general awareness that monitoring is pervasive and that the consequences of detection are severe.

Reforms and the Path Forward

Saudi Arabia has made some reforms to its media environment that, while limited, represent movement from a very restrictive baseline. The General Authority for Audiovisual Media (GCAM), established in 2016, has overseen the licensing of cinemas (reopened in 2018 after a 35-year ban), expanded entertainment content, and the development of a domestic film and television production industry. The Saudi entertainment sector has grown rapidly, with Riyadh Season, Jeddah Season, and other cultural events creating new platforms for creative expression—within the boundaries established by the state.

The kingdom has invested in journalism education and media training, with new programs at Saudi universities and partnerships with international media organizations. These investments signal an awareness that the kingdom’s media sector needs to develop professionally, even as the political constraints on that sector remain severe.

The critical question for media freedom in Saudi Arabia is whether the social liberalization underway will eventually create pressure for greater information openness. As Saudi citizens become more connected to global information flows, more traveled, and more engaged with international media, the gap between the curated domestic narrative and the more complex reality reported internationally becomes harder to maintain. Whether the government’s response to this gap will be to gradually open the media environment or to intensify surveillance and control remains to be seen.

For Expo 2030, the media freedom question will be front and center. The event’s success depends in part on international media coverage, and that coverage will inevitably include reporting on media freedom itself. How Saudi Arabia navigates this recursive challenge—being scrutinized by the very media it seeks to control—will be one of the most watched aspects of the Expo preparations. The kingdom has the resources, the strategic sophistication, and the international relationships to manage the narrative effectively. Whether it can do so while also making meaningful progress on media freedom is a question that the 42 million visitors and thousands of journalists covering Expo 2030 will help to answer.

The Paradox of Visibility

Saudi Arabia’s media freedom challenge in the Expo 2030 era is fundamentally a paradox of visibility. The kingdom wants to be seen—it is spending $7.8 billion on the Expo, $92 billion on Riyadh’s transformation, and billions more on tourism, entertainment, and international sporting events designed to project a modern, open, and dynamic image to the world. But the very visibility it seeks brings scrutiny it cannot fully control.

In a country where a PhD student serves 34 years for tweets and where the murder of a journalist in a consulate remains the defining story of the current leadership’s tenure, the desire for positive global attention exists in permanent tension with the reality of information control. This tension will not be resolved by the time Expo 2030 opens. It will, instead, be the underlying dynamic that shapes every aspect of the event’s media coverage—from the carefully produced opening ceremony broadcasts to the investigative reports filed from outside the Expo gates.

The international media organizations that will cover Expo 2030 face their own challenge: how to report accurately on a country that is simultaneously undergoing genuine transformation and maintaining one of the world’s most restrictive information environments. The answer will require the kind of nuanced, contextual reporting that goes beyond both the promotional narratives that Saudi Arabia will offer and the reflexive condemnation that characterizes some international coverage. The story is not simple, and the media environment in which it will be told is not free. Both facts must be held simultaneously for the coverage to be honest.