Vice blocked news stories that could offend Saudi Arabia, insiders say

Vice has repeatedly blocked news stories that could offend the Saudi government, leaving its reporters unsure if they are still able to report freely on the kingdom’s human rights abuses, sources have said.

The media company recently signed a lucrative partnership deal with the MBC Group, a media company controlled by the Saudi government, to establish a joint venture in the Middle Eastern country. Of the 29 jobs currently advertised on Vice’s careers page, 20 are based in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh.

But the enormous sums of money now flowing from Saudi Arabia into Vice have led to high-level concerns within the company’s news division that the bosses are censoring its western-facing news content in order to protect staff working on contracts in Saudi Arabia.