The news report read: “Saudi Arabia’s main mobile phone operator has banned its customers from voting by text message on a hit reality television show because it fails to ‘match the values’ of the Kingdom. Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) said on Tuesday it had blocked its 9.5 million mobile phone customers from texting votes for their favorite musical contestants on the satellite TV show Star Academy 2.”
What a contradiction! The program pulled in large numbers of viewers and hence high ratings last year.
This year, people have also been discussing it and again, it has proved a very popular show. On the other side of the coin, some writers in our newspapers have launched a campaign against such reality programs, alleging that they might “affect the morals of the society.” In various mosques, imams have preached of the effects on youth because of watching “shameful” mingling of the sexes and singing by young Arab contestants. And so to put the icing on the cake and to protect “the morals of society”, STC has decided to prevent subscribers from sending mobile text messages to the program. Yet...it will still allow the public to vote using a landline! How can using a mobile phone “affect morals” when using a landline for the same purpose not “affect morals”?
So once again, here we go, waging a war on what some see as a danger and a threat to our moral values. A few months ago, The King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) announced renewed efforts to block all Internet sites that offend the moral code. And in still another recent development, the long-banned mobile camera phones are now allowed to be sold in the Kingdom though stern warnings have been issued to those who might be tempted to misuse the technology.
To return to the STC decision concerning not voting with mobile phones, an STC spokesman said, “We feel the program does not match the values of Saudi culture... Our social and economic market research shows that our customers want us to operate in line with those values.”
OK, so STC actually cares about what their customers want — but basically they ought to realize that what their customers really want and need is good service rather than a free moral guide with every line. Hold this in your mind and read on. In one Saudi paper yesterday, there was a photo from Al-Baha that showed mobile phones tied to poles and raised to a great height in order to pick up a signal. People in the region said the signal does not come in and they have to resort to sticking mobiles on poles in order to receive the signal! Is this evidence that STC really cares what its customers want?
STC’s marketing and research department should perhaps engage in genuine research for a change and actually investigate people’s complaints; if they did so, maybe they would notice that an increasing number of people are eager for Itisalat to begin operating in the Kingdom so they can switch to it.
The important point here is STC’s confusion about its role as a service provider. It should stick to providing a service instead of assuming the role of moral guardian.
If we follow this moral guardian idea to its logical conclusion, we’d have STC tapping into every line to make sure people are not planning to commit crimes or conversing in ways which could lead to a breach of the moral code.
This all leads to an important question: How can people be forced to behave in what is considered a moral way? Blocked Internet sites do not prevent crimes nor do they prevent those looking for pornographic sites from breaking the codes and accessing the sites. Banning mobile cameras will not stop people from taking pictures of other people in the street or anywhere else. What really works — and we seemed to have finally grasped this — is that if someone commits a crime or violates the laws by misusing a service or a device, then there has to be a legal way of dealing with the problem. Otherwise we will be forced to assume that people do not know what is for their own good and that they thus require constant supervision and guidance.
But what made that particular TV program such a threat to society?
People who watch it and other reality shows feel that their responses are important; their votes are counted, no matter how simple and trivial the object is. According to a Saudi sociologist, in such programs, young people find a way to free themselves from the kind of supervision and lack of respect for individual choices that some elements of our society are so willing and eager to perform. And they do perform.
Talking about this with a friend, she said, “It is interesting that some people in society expect the government to do their work for them. So instead of taking care of their own families and carrying out their own supervision in whatever way they want, they expect official bodies to do this. Block websites, ban cameras, stop SMS and regulate ways of dressing.” From what my friend said, I can see how our society is becoming dependent, even when it comes to what should be individual decisions.
Another point came to mind: if we keep expecting things to go wrong, they will eventually go wrong.
Simply because we are so preoccupied with what might happen that we fail to address what is actually happening. Surely the crux of the matter is: Are we assuming our people are so weak and vulnerable that a TV show can change their morals? A sad state if it is indeed the real one!
I think this only reflects our own lack of confidence and it might also indicate that perhaps we are not doing our jobs as we should and as we know they should be done. If our children are going to be influenced by everything they see on TV, shouldn’t we ask ourselves if we have provided them with the immunity they need, the ability to judge for themselves and the most elemental of all — how to tell right from wrong. Until we can find the right answers, I fear we’ll have to live with the chaos of censorship.
