Two Saudi Wikipedia administrators were jailed for 32 years and eight years in government efforts to control information, say NGOs.
ADVERTISEMENTSaudi Arabian authorities have “infiltrated” Wikipedia and convicted two administrators in an attempt to control the site’s editorial content, according to two non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
It comes weeks after a US court sentenced a former Twitter employee to three and a half years in prison for spying for Saudi officials.
Two organisations, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and SMEX, based in Washington and Beirut respectively, said in a joint statement that “the Saudi Arabian government infiltrated Wikipedia by recruiting the organization’s highest-ranked administrators in the country… to control information about the country and prosecuting those who contributed critical information about political detainees”.
The NGOs said they had evidence of Wikipedia’s penetration by the Saudi government based on…
