Saudi Arabia has blocked Qatari broadcaster BeIN's popular streaming service TOD.tv since the start of the World Cup on Nov. 20, according to a Reuters witness, in a sudden disruption after 10 months of smooth operations. Accessing the TOD.tv page from within Saudi Arabia prompts a page that reads, "Sorry, the requested page is violating the regulations of the ministry of media." TOD.tv sent a message to its subscribers in Saudi Arabia on November 24 saying it was experiencing an outage. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attended the opening ceremony of the first FIFA World Cup in the Middle East. In 2020, the World Trade Organization (WTO) found Saudi Arabia had breached global rules on intellectual property rights by failing to prosecute pirate TV channel beoutQ for piracy of beIN's content.

Source: The North Africa Journal November 26, 2022 12:06 UTC