RIYADH (Reuters) – The Saudi government is lifting a ban on calls made through online apps on Thursday but will monitor and censor them, a government spokesman said.All online voice and video call services – such as Microsoft’s Skype, Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger, and Rakuten’s Viber – that satisfy regulatory requirements were set to become accessible overnight.However, on Thursday morning, Viber appeared to remain blocked inside the kingdom, and WhatsApp worked only when connected to a wireless network.Adel Abu Hameed, spokesman for telecoms regulator CITC, said on Arabiya TV on Wednesday that new regulations were aimed mainly at protecting users’ personal information and blocking content that violated the kingdom’s laws.

Saudi Arabia is lifting a year-long ban on Skype and other services like WhatsApp and Snapchat, effective at 8PM ET today. According to a statement from Saudi Arabia’s telecommunications authority posted on Twitter, any voice and video apps that meet the rules will be allowed.In the context of Saudi’s current economy, the ban lift makes sense. As oil prices plummet, Saudi Arabia is looking to the internet for more sources of revenue. In August, honesty app Sarahah, launched by a Saudi developer Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, topped the most downloaded free apps charts in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Other similar startups are also drawing the attention of venture capitalists.

Previous versions of Apple’s iPhone and iPad operating system integrated single sign-on Facebook and Twitter into the system. In iOS 11, they’re back to being extensions.With the iOS 11 update on iPhone and iPad, social network services, like Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and Flickr, whoch used to have single sign-on for systemwide integration have been removed. Instead, these services are treated the same as other apps. You’ll have to give permission within apps using the standard extensions that other apps use.In iOS 10 and older (back to iOS 8), users could sign into Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and Flickr from the Settings app on iPhone and iPad. This would make it easier to add additional content, like contacts, events, and more, directly to Apple’s built-in apps, like Contacts, Calendar, Photos, and others. Additionally, apps that requested access to those social services could integrate with just a quick permission from you.