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Middle East / Saudi Arabia · Politics

Sri Lankan man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for Facebook post

Rank
Running
28h
Updated
3h ago
Momentum
-16%
Outlets
10
Regions
4
Countries
10
Languages
8

+0

BBC News United Kingdom · English 5 Oct, 22:28 UTC

The earliest of 3 English reports

Read it also in Norsk (1) · Português (1) · Română (1) · Svenska (1) · Türkçe (1) · Српски (1) · नेपाली (1) · +6 languages

Read at BBC News

How it spread

Outlets covering the story by hours since its first article: one at the start, 10 after 31 hours.

5 10
0h 6h 12h 18h 24h 30h

Outlets, by hours since the first article

  1. First outlet: BBC News, 5 Oct, 22:28 UTC.
  2. Second country: Nepal, with Ratopati.
  3. Second region: Asia-Pacific, with Ratopati.
  4. Fastest hour: +2 outlets from 6 Oct, 03:00 UTC.
  5. Now: 10 outlets.

Where it travelled

31 of 31 hours

Earlier Later

The 10 countries whose press covered it, the later a country joined, the more it stands out. Open the live map

The regions

20%60%

  • Africa 2 outlets · 2 countries · 20%
  • Asia-Pacific 1 outlet · 1 country · 10%
  • Europe 6 outlets · 6 countries · 60%
  • Middle East 1 outlet · 1 country · 10%

First movers

  1. BBC News 5 Oct, 22:28 UTC
  2. Ratopati +3h 30m
  3. MyJoyOnline +4h 32m
  4. VG +5h 6m
  5. G4Media +12h 13m

Latest arrivals

  1. Aftonbladet 7 Oct, 01:33 UTC
  2. Cumhuriyet 6 Oct, 20:51 UTC
  3. Nile Post 6 Oct, 14:32 UTC
  4. Público 6 Oct, 13:57 UTC
  5. Blic 6 Oct, 12:31 UTC

The figures

Coverage
10 outlets in 10 countries, across 4 regions. The article links last a week past the story’s last article; the outlet list is permanent. Of the 10 outlets, 1 public-service, 9 private. A count of countries is not a count of independent press systems.
Countries by region
Africa 2: Ghana, Uganda. Asia-Pacific 1: Nepal. Europe 6: Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, United Kingdom. Middle East 1: Turkey. The region a country’s press publishes from, as the feed list files it; the outlets that publish from no single country count as one country under International.
Languages
English, Nepali, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Swedish, Turkish.
Timeline
Earliest article BBC News, 5 Oct 2026, 22:28 UTC. First seen 6 Oct 2026, 00:30 UTC. Last seen 7 Oct 2026, 01:33 UTC. The earliest article is the earliest claimed publication time among the outlets Loudest reads, a claim rather than an observation and not a record of who broke the story (the data files call it the lead article); first seen is when Loudest first fetched an article of it, from which the running time counts.
Classification
Region Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Topic Politics. Hard news Judged hard news. On the map. Whether the story is hard news under the rule in the methodology, judged from its headlines by a model; a story judged outside the rule is left off the map and kept here. The region and country are where the story is about, not where it was covered.
Score
1.44, as of now. One vote per general-press country and a smaller term for outlets, each counted from the moment it joined the story and fading on its own clock, so a late article does not renew the rest. A day in the archive keeps the score it was ranked by that day.
Day by day

Outlets and countries are the story’s whole life as of that midnight; the 24-hour columns are that day’s own coverage; the last column is the methodology version the day was measured under, and a day that spans a change of version shows the first and last, linked to the changelog that lists every version between. A day marked partial is one Loudest read only in part: fewer than 130 of its 144 ten-minute runs, or more than 30 minutes missed at its start or end.

Day Rank Score Outlets Countries 24h outlets 24h countries Method
6 Oct 2026 161 5.12 9 9 8 8 4.6

This record as JSON, CC BY 4.0.

How this was measured

This page describes measured coverage: which of the outlets Loudest reads carried the story, from how many countries and in how many languages, and when. It says nothing about whether the story is true, important or well reported.

Started 6 Oct, 00:30 UTC · Updated 7 Oct, 01:33 UTC

Covered by 10 outlets

Pin outlets you trust with ☆ and they come first in every story.

Africa 2 outlets

  • Nile Post Uganda 6 Oct, 14:32 UTC
    Saudi Arabia urged to spare man sentenced to death over Facebook post
  • MyJoyOnline Ghana 6 Oct, 03:00 UTC
    Saudi Arabia urged to spare man sentenced to death over Facebook post

Asia-Pacific 1 outlet

  • Ratopati Nepal 6 Oct, 01:58 UTC
    फेसबुकमा लेख्दा साउदी अरबमा मृत्युदण्डको सजाय

Europe 6 outlets

  • Aftonbladet Sweden 7 Oct, 01:33 UTC
    Dömd till döden – för kommentar på Facebook
  • Público Portugal 6 Oct, 13:57 UTC
    Arábia Saudita condena jovem de 24 anos à morte por comentários no Facebook
  • Blic Serbia 6 Oct, 12:31 UTC
    STRANI RADNIK OSUĐEN NA SMRT! Horor u Saudijskoj Arabiji: Mladić (24) proglašen krivim zbog KOMENTARA NA MREŽAMA, porodica moli za milost
  • G4Media Romania 6 Oct, 10:41 UTC
    Tânăr din Sri Lanka, condamnat la moarte în Arabia Saudită pentru un comentariu ofensator la adresa profetului Mahomed / Inițial primise cinci ani de închisoare
  • VG Norway 6 Oct, 03:33 UTC
    Mann dømt til døden i Saudi-Arabia etter Facebook-kommentar
  • BBC News United Kingdom 5 Oct, 22:28 UTC
    Saudi Arabia urged to spare man sentenced to death over Facebook post

Middle East 1 outlet

  • Cumhuriyet Turkey 6 Oct, 20:51 UTC
    Suudi Arabistan'da Sri Lankalı göçmen işçiye ölüm cezası…
Read at BBC News

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