Saudi Arabia men: ‘We don’t want girls on Twitter’

IN A country where women aren’t permitted to drive and need men’s permission to do most things, this one piece of freedom was apparently too much.

‘We don’t want girls on Twitter’

IN A country where women aren’t permitted to drive and need men’s permission to do pretty much most things, Twitter represented some freedom for Saudi girls.

So it might come as no surprise that some men in the Middle East kingdom were calling for women to be banned from here as well.

Thousands of Twitter users were pushing to move women off the social networking site with an Arabic hashtag which translates as “We don’t want girls on Twitter” over the weekend which was mentioned more than 400,000 times, the BBC reported.

But it seems girl power prevailed when thousands began tweeting jokes and pictures in response with even men joining in the fun.

One user posted a crying emoji face and the caption “Why? What have we done?”.

Another took a slightly different approach and posted a picture of a goat with the caption “This is the person who started the hashtag”.

#مانبي_بنات_في_تويتر هذا هو صاحب الهاشتاق pic.twitter.com/2tpz7Yc2lo

— اكيد فاهمني ~ (@Aked_F) January 24, 2015

So when some #SaudiMen said they don't want girls on Twitter..The girls responded: #مانبي_عيال_في_تويتر (we don't want men on twitter). ha!

— Maha Alfarra (@mahafarra) January 26, 2015

Some Saudi men said "We don't want girls on Twitter". Here's what Saudi women said back http://t.co/4lyg3rDB2h pic.twitter.com/6bBRi4O1a9

— BBC Trending (@BBCtrending) January 26, 2015

There was even an attempt to start an alternative hashtag, we don’t want men on Twitter but it failed to trend.

Hashtag "We don't want girls on Twitter" backfired on #Saudi men calling for Gender segregation on social media https://t.co/MPKZlsBTur

— SaadAbedine (@SaadAbedine) January 26, 2015

FILE - In this Saturday, March 29, 2014 file photo, Aziza Yousef drives a car on a highway in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving. Single Saudi women stand at the center of a societal pivot. On the one hand, the kingdom has increasingly encouraged women to graduate from college and enter the workforce. On the other hand, it still requires that they adhere to laws that give men final say over their lives. Over the past three decades until around 2009, the number of Saudi women working was less than 50,000, but is now more than 400,000, according to the Labor Ministry. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)