Within hours of blocking popular social network Facebook, saying that the site had “crossed a line” in regard to the country’s conservative values, Saudi Arabia soon reversed its stance and restored access to the site.

During the hours that the access to Facebook was blocked in Saudi Arabia – which has nearly 27 million Facebook users -, those who tried to visit the site had an error saying “content restricted”, displayed on the screen.

About the consequence of the Facebook ban in the country, Emirates 247. com said: “Many visitors who are registered in Facebook could not access their account after the blockage, which started on Friday night without a prior warning.”

Emirates 247. com also added that visitors who tried to access the site during the few hours that it was banned, the site “was giving them the following phrase ‘sorry, the required page is not available.”

The Saudi government has neither disclosed anything about those Facebook contents that were supposedly not compliant with the values of the country, nor have the officials confirmed why the ban was lifted after only a few hours. Facebook too has not said anything on the matter.

Earlier in the year, Facebook access was blocked in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Turkey- with all these three countries revealing that the reason for the blockage was that certain pages did not fit within their religious or government policy.