Officials in the country of Saudi Arabia officially blocked-and quickly restored-access to the world’s largest social network for its population of approximately 27 million people earlier today. According to officials, Facebook “crossed a line” against the country’s more conservative values.
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But, like two college co-eds in a digital battle over a dorm room, Saudi Arabia soon warmed up to Facebook and removed the temporary restrictions put in place, according to the Associated Press. The site was quasi-offline for the brief span of a few hours, leading to a number of online messages inquiring as to why users were met with a green “contest restricted” screen upon trying to log into the service.
The extremely temporary ban follows the same route that both Pakistan and Bangladesh employed earlier this year in their own attempts to keep pages on the social-networking service out of the public eye. It appears that Saudi Arabia’s few-hour ban is the shortest on record, however. Pakistan and Bangladesh restricted access to the site anywhere from a few days to a week.
There’s no indication as to what parts of Facebook’s sprawling content well that Saudi Arabia officials objected. Pakistan and Bangladesh blocked the site as a reaction to user uproar over a user-proposed, “Everybody draw Mohammed Day” event, as images of Prophet Muhammed are considered blasphemous by many Muslims; Islamic scholars remain divided over its permissibility.
Officials haven’t released any information as to why the ban was lifted so shortly after it began. Facebook itself has not issued a comment on the matter.