# Sustained censorship in SA (2026-05)

**Country:** 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia (SA)
**Date:** 2026-05-04
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** WARNING
**Status:** confirmed

## Summary

OONI detected 7 days of elevated network interference averaging 24.7% anomaly rate.

## Metrics

- Confidence: 70%
- Measurements: 7
- Anomaly Rate: 24.7%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 308/2913 anomalous, 131 confirmed on AS25019
  - Observed: 2026-05-31
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS25019&since=2026-05-31)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 14/100 anomalous, 11 confirmed on AS35753
  - Observed: 2026-05-31
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS35753&since=2026-05-31)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 63/313 anomalous, 34 confirmed on AS35819
  - Observed: 2026-05-31
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS35819&since=2026-05-31)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 84/700 anomalous, 44 confirmed on AS39891
  - Observed: 2026-05-31
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS39891&since=2026-05-31)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 34/212 anomalous, 14 confirmed on AS43766
  - Observed: 2026-05-31
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS43766&since=2026-05-31)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI http_invalid_request_line: 2/4 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-05
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=http_invalid_request_line&since=2026-05-05&until=2026-05-05&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-04
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=tor&since=2026-05-04&until=2026-05-04&only=anomalies)

## What we cannot say

- **Who caused it** — measurement data alone does not attribute the interference to any government, ISP, or other actor.
- **Intent** — anomalous or unreachable measurements indicate interference, not a stated motive or a deliberate-vs-incidental determination.
- **Which networks** — no specific ASN/ISP is identified for this incident.
- **The mechanism** — we cannot state whether this was DNS tampering, TLS/SNI reset, HTTP blockpage, throttling, or an infrastructure outage.
- **A confirmed duration** — we report the observation window, not a verified start/stop of any block.
- **Sub-national scope** — measurement is aggregated at the country level; we cannot localize to a province, city, or network segment.
- **Independent corroboration** — this rests on a single source; treat it as a single-source signal, not a multi-source confirmation.

## Data Sources

ooni

## Citation

Voidly Research. (2026). Sustained censorship in SA (2026-05) [SA-2026-0156]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/SA-2026-0156

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*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-06-21*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: SA-2026-0156*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/SA-2026-0156*