DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates has unveiled new laws increasing the punishment for viewing “pornography” online or sharing it via private messages and social media platforms in UAE territory, including Dubai.
The new, harsher penalties for watching or sharing adult content were revealed yesterday and were then disseminated via video by the Instagram account of pro-government publication Emarat Al Youm, or Emirates Today, published by Dubai Media Foundation.
The video was captioned: “Imprisonment and a fine is the punishment for sharing pornography on social media.”
Noted Emirati legal advisor Youssef Al-Sharif, who speaks in the video, was quoted by English-language news site Dubai Week, stressing “the need for individuals to be careful and considerate when publishing or republishing videos and photos they receive through social networking sites and applications such as WhatsApp.”
When these clips “contain pornography or affect public morality,” they would trigger “unintentional liability, imprisonment and a fine of up to half-a-million dirhams [around U.S. $135,000],” Al-Sharif warned.
Al-Sharif explained that the sharing of “pornography” through What’sApp “can happen between some friends, [and it] is considered a punishable offense under the law,” asking that “individuals, especially young people” realize “the importance of raising awareness when dealing with the virtual world because [it is] easy to send pornography to others [without] awareness of the punishment involved.”
Al-Sharif noted that the Emirati definition of pornography is “the creation of a kind of visual, audio or textual image that aims to stimulate the viewer, listener [or] reader.” This can involve “audio clips, magazines, books and, currently, blogs, social networking sites and information networking.”
The new laws impose prison sentences as well as fines of between 250,000 and 500,000 dirhams, which is around $68,000 to $136,000, for “the creator, administrator or supervisor of a website which broadcasts, transmits, publishes, republishes or displays information about online pornography and [against] public morals.” Anyone “who manufactures, sends or stores pornography and all that goes against public morals with the intent of exploiting or distributing it through an information network will be subject to the same penalty.”
One place that falls under the jurisdiction of these new laws is Dubai, a crucial Middle Eastern hub for business and high-end tourism. Dubai is also known as a destination for many sex workers and social media influencers, who may be directly affected these changes and would do well to be aware of them.
