RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (SatireWire.com) — Cut off from Twitter and Facebook, protesters in Saudi Arabia yesterday turned to social news website Reddit to organize an uprising, but failed after their call for revolt was down-voted.
The would-be rebels attempted to organize a rally outside the Murabba Palace in the capital city of Riyadh. After posting details on Reddit – a site in which readers can vote submissions up or down, and comment on them — their call to action initially received several upvotes and promises of participation. The uprising fell apart, however, as some commenters then began to argue over grammatical errors in the submission, while others insisted the submitter posted to the wrong category or didn’t promise to provide bacon – a favorite food of Redditors.
According to Saudi police, only three people showed up for the rally. Two of them – whose screen names were freesaudi11 and arabia4evah, were beaten and arrested. The third was a Reddit moderator informing the other two that their post had been removed.
The pair had hoped to push for political and religious reform in the kingdom, long ruled by the Saud family. The government, aware that Twitter and Facebook helped to take down dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, cut off access weeks ago to most social networking sites. Reddit, however, remained available, as King Abdullah is a frequent Reddit poster and is known to use the screen name LoveCrumpet019.
Saudi officials did not respond to questions about the protest, but a screen grab of the online posting shows Abdullah, or someone using his screen name, made several comments on Reddit encouraging readers to downvote. The original Reddit post and subsequent comments are below.
Saudis Rise Up! Protest today at Marabba Palace. 6 p.m. This is hour time!
submitted 2 hours ago by freesaudi11
22 comments share save hide report
All 22 comments
sorted by: top
arabia4evah 8 points 2 hours ago
I will be with you! We must show the corrupt family of Saud that they cannot to be tolerated any longer.
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shariaoutlaw 25 points 2 hours ago
Will there be bacon?
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crudedoyle 4 points 2 hours ago
Yes! Down with Abdullah! Up with bacon! I am upvote most heartily.
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lovecrumpet019 4 points 2 hours ago
No no no. Saudi Arabia IS free! The people are most happy. This posting person is a foreign agent on
hallucination pills. Downvote if you love freedom!
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particularsnit 7 points 2 hours ago
I don’t know anything about Saudi Arabia, but why is this posted on Reddit? Use Twitter.
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freesaudi11 1 point 2 hours ago
Twitter is cut off from us. To spread word and set us free we rely on Reddit!
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happymemeperson 18 points 2 hours ago
And my axe!
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annoyingone 11 points 2 hours ago
I don’t mind that it’s on Reddit. But why is this posted to r/worldnews? It’s not ‘news’ because
it hasn’t happened yet. Downvote.”
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lovecrumpet019 3 points 1 hour ago
Yes I am totally agree. This should have been posted to r/meetup. Or r/anarchy? Or
r/foreignagentsondrugs. Mods please to remove!
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englishmajor44 33 points 1 hour ago
[_]__[_] “Hour time”? Should be “our time”.
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happymemetime 30 points 1 hour ago
Should be “Hammer time!”
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neverreadstories 35 points 1 hour ago
Axe time!
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pondjumper 40 points 1 hour ago
Bacon time!
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Freesaudi11 1 point 1 hour ago
Please! This is not relevant. Lives are at steak.
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pondjumper 6 points 1 hour ago
Mmm… steak.
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lovecrumpet019 1 point 1 hour ago
Foreign agents are known for poor spellings! Downvote!
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redditpollover 145 points 45 minutes ago
Is there a poll somewhere to change their flag? I think they’ll need a new flag.
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freesaudi11 1 point 42 minutes ago
We have already a flag! What we want is freedom!
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pondjumper 42 points 35 minutes ago
What I want is bacon.
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happymemeperson 988 points 25 minutes ago
“There can be no freedom without bacon.” — Thomas Paine.
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freesaudi11 1 point 20 minutes ago
Please. We cannot have bacon.
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indooroutdoor 200 points 15 minutes ago
Then you can have no uprising.
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