Saudi Arabia: Closed consultation on Regulation in Global Digital Content Safe Harbor Law including content moderation regulation

On 13 October 2023, the Communications, Space & Technology Commission of Saudi Arabia (CST) closed its consultation on the law on Global Digital Content Safe Harbor. The law aims to establish a legal framework and requirements necessary for exemption from civil or criminal liability for intermediate service providers hosting and transiting global digital content. The draft defines an intermediary service as "hosting, processing, storing, transferring, or transiting global digital content outside the Kingdom, or enabling access thereto through the telecommunications network or IT infrastructure". The intermediary service provider is exempted from both civil and criminal liability in cases where they provide an intermediary service involving global digital content violating the laws. Nothing in this Regulation requires intermediary service providers to monitor the global digital content hosted by them. Furthermore, the CST shall coordinate with the competent authorities to restrict access to digital content that violates the laws of the Kingdom and to direct providers to remove such content and implement filtering measures in accordance with Article (24) of the Telecommunications and Information Technology Law.