# Sustained censorship in SA (2026-09)

**Country:** 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia (SA)
**Date:** 2026-09-01
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** WARNING
**Status:** confirmed

## Summary

OONI detected 8 days of elevated network interference averaging 9.3% anomaly rate.

## Metrics

- Confidence: 70%
- Measurements: 8
- Anomaly Rate: 9.3%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 5/10 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-09-05
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=tor&since=2026-09-05&until=2026-09-06&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 60/642 anomalous, 23 confirmed on AS25019
  - Observed: 2026-09-05
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS25019&since=2026-09-05)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 44/480 anomalous, 17 confirmed on AS25019
  - Observed: 2026-09-04
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS25019&since=2026-09-04)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 5/94 anomalous, 3 confirmed on AS35753
  - Observed: 2026-09-04
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS35753&since=2026-09-04)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 73/765 anomalous, 14 confirmed on AS25019
  - Observed: 2026-09-03
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS25019&since=2026-09-03)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 116/915 anomalous, 16 confirmed on AS35819
  - Observed: 2026-09-03
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS35819&since=2026-09-03)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 71/734 anomalous, 26 confirmed on AS25019
  - Observed: 2026-09-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS25019&since=2026-09-02)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 47/560 anomalous, 10 confirmed on AS35753
  - Observed: 2026-09-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS35753&since=2026-09-02)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 6/7 measurements anomalous (85.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-09-01
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=tor&since=2026-09-01&until=2026-09-02&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-09-01
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=tor&since=2026-09-01&until=2026-09-02&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI per-ASN: 48/480 anomalous, 17 confirmed on AS25019
  - Observed: 2026-09-01
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SA&test_name=web_connectivity&probe_asn=AS25019&since=2026-09-01)

## 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 (2026-09) [SA-2026-0652]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/SA-2026-0652

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*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-09-06*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: SA-2026-0652*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/SA-2026-0652*