Twitter sent safety alerts to dozens of the accounts Alzabarah had checked, some of which either fostered activism or might have been critical of the Saudi regime. The mix included policy academics, journalists and experts on security and surveillance, including people involved in the Tor Project and its activist-friendly anonymizing network.

Don't expect confirmations. Twitter has declined to comment, while neither Alzabarah (who now works for the Saudi government) nor the kingdom had responded as of October 20th.

If accurate, the scoop suggests not only that Saudi Arabia has been determined to control its online political discourse at all costs, but that Twitter didn't have checks to make sure that employees were accessing accounts for the right reasons. Not that this is a unique issue if so -- Facebook recently fired a worker who allegedly abused his position to stalk women. Unless there are tight controls on data, there's a chance (however slim) that employees will misuse their power.