A popular Egyptian TikToker Tala Safwan has been arrested in Saudi Arabia, accused of posting a voice message with explicit sexual content.
Police arrested the Egyptian woman, who is living in Riyadh after she appeared in the clip talking to another person with sexual undertones in a way contrary to public morals and decency.
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Police sources said legal measures were taken against the Egyptian woman, who was referred to the Public Prosecution.
Tala Safwan, who has five million followers on TikTok and some 800,000 on YouTube, said that had not been her intention.
In the clip, she’s seen chatting to a female Saudi friend, whom she invites over to her house. Her subsequent remarks have been interpreted by some as being sexually suggestive.
That set off a big campaign against her, with a hashtag trending on Twitter that translates as “Tala offends society”.
She responded by saying she’d been misunderstood, adding that the clip had been taken out of context from the full video she recorded, in order to cause a scandal.
The police did not name Tala Safwan, but included a clip of the video with her face and that of her friend blurred.
It comes just days after the Saudi media regulator demanded that YouTube remove advertisements that it considers offensive to the country’s Muslim values and principles. The regulator threatened to take legal action if nothing was done.
The announcement followed complaints by Saudi parents that their children were being exposed to inappropriate content in ads broadcast on YouTube.
