As we reported back in December, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal purchased a stake in Twitter at $300 million. At the time, the purchase was described by Talal as being “a suitable opportunity to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with global impact.”

Talal owns Kingdom Holdings Company. The company owns stakes in Apple, Time Warner, Citigroup, Pepsi, General Motors, Walt Disney and News Corp. Twitter was the first social media giant that Talal saw fit to invest in.

There was already some speculation back in December that the move was an act of self-preservation with one analyst saying that he was using the Twitter investment to prevent any further revolutions in the region.

Twitter users have latched onto the news and are squarely pointing the blame at Talal as the reason behind the recent change in Twitter’s policy.

Did Twitter decide to apply localized censorship due to pressure from Prince Talal? We’ll most likely never know.

Do you think Talal’s investment in Twitter led to their new policy? Or is this all just one big conspiracy theory? Tell us in the comments.

Saudi Arabia is the only country that actively bans women from driving. The laws are based on religious rulings that are enforced by the police. Not only are Saudi women banned from driving in the country, but all woman (including foreign born) are banned.

Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested al-Sherif on Saturday for driving, but released her after she signed a “no-driving” pledge. She posted a video on YouTube of her driving around the streets of Khobar and was re-arrested early Sunday morning. In the video al-Sherif, dressed in an abaya says that not all Saudi women are “queens” with the money to hire drivers and that women driving is a safety issue – what if their husbands have a heart attack or something?

al-Sherif is one of the women behind a social media campaign to advance women’s rights by the dismantling of the no-driving laws. Their Facebook page, “Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself” was taken down after her arrest, but a new page has been formed in its stead. The new page has 4,142 likes as of the writing of this article.

A Facebook page that some have discussed also sprang up advocating the beating of Saudi women who attempt to drive on June 17th, the date the Saudi women’s driving advocacy group has picked to hold a “drive-in” of sorts. As of now I cannot find the page and links to it redirect to the Facebook home page, which suggests that it was removed by either Facebook or the creators.

Saudi women says that the laws are unfair to women because they force them to hire drivers, which many of them cannot afford. Here is part of the group’s statement, from the publication Jadaliyya:

We have been silent and under the mercy of our guardian (muhram) or foreign driver for too long. Some of us barely make ends meet and cannot even afford cab fare. Some of us are the heads of households yet have no source of income except for a few hard-earned [Saudi] Riyals that are used to pay drivers. Then there are those of us who do not have a muhram to look after our affairs and are forced to ask strangers for help. We are even deprived of public transportation, our only salvation from being under the mercy of others. We are your daughters, wives, sisters, and mothers. We are half of society and give birth to [the other] half, yet we have been made invisible and our demands have been marginalized.

Saudi clerics say that the ban “protects against the spread of vice and temptation” because women who drive would be free to leave the home and mingle with males. Some say that al-Sherif was arrested to prevent other activists from doing the same.

Saudi Arabia blocked some blogging services in the country, actions that preceded the arrest of Farhan in his Jeddah office on December 10th. Reporters Without Borders reported that, weeks later, Farhan was still being detained.

His current whereabouts, and reasons for the detention, have not been publicly disclosed by the Saudi Interior Ministry. RSF blasted the kingdom for failing to follow through with promised reforms and tolerance of dissenting views.

Farhan’s saga has bubbled up through the media, with the New York Times questioning his detention. A Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman, General Mansour al-Turki, told the Times he did not believe Farhan "will remain in detention long. They will get the information that they need from him and then they will let him go."

It’s been over three weeks since Farhan’s arrest, which happened on World Human Rights Day. Farhan’s blog contains a letter he wrote ahead of his arrest, predicting that would be imminent.

"The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia and they think I’m running a online campaign promoting their issue. All what I did is wrote some pieces and put side banners and asked other bloggers to do the same," he wrote.

"He asked me to comply with him and sign an apology. I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that. An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?" Farhan continued.

At the Crooks and Liars blog, Nicole Belle said Farhan’s detention should concern people who don’t think "peaceful Muslims" speak out enough about terrorism committed in their name.

"Farhan was just such a voice, so it’s ironic that the Saudis are trying to silence him for not following their talking points," said Belle.