Saudi Arabia to Require Licenses for Bloggers

American journalists and bloggers might often complain about the lack of order to the Web, but feel lucky we don’t have to sign up for a government license just to express our opinions online. That’s what Saudi Arabian bloggers will soon have to do, reports TechCrunch.

Saudi Information and Culture Ministry spokesman Abdul Rahman Al-Hazza announced that bloggers, web publishers and other online media will need to register with the government, if they want to publish online. It’s a shocking restriction that will hinder the amount of information flowing out of the Middle Eastern country.

Of course, even though it’s illegal to publicly protest in Saudi Arabia, you can’t keep a good online writer down. People have expressed their disgust of the rule on Twitter, using the hashtag #haza3. The new rule hasn’t gone into effect, but hopefully Saudi Arabia will soon learn it’s not worth the time or effort to silence those working bloggers out there.

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