Facebook: Punishable by death?

Obviously this story is even more disturbing than the incident involving the teenage girl who hung herself after receiving hateful messages from her Myspace "boyfriend", who turned out to be the parents of a former friend with whom she had had a falling out. In a strictly Islamic culture like that of Saudi Arabia, it seems only natural that women who cannot otherwise express feelings of sexuality would turn to the internet to do so. I feel like a lot of people still see the internet as this massive invisible place where we can pretend to be whoever we want to be, or do things we would never dream of doing in real life. In this case, because Saudi women are forbidden to interact with any man they please, they have turned to this virtual world to derive some sort of satisfaction from their personal relationships. I think this demonstrates that within the culture as a whole many women feel stifled by the strict regulations that are imposed on them. If given the chance to safely protest in public (without the fear of persecution or even death) these women would not feel like they have to use social networking websites to secretly engage in activities that are punishable in Saudi culture.

On the other hand, as we have become increasingly aware of lately, the activities we engage in online are not necessarily as secret as we might have hoped. If employers can hire people to investigate the online habits of job and internship applicants, why can't Saudi authorities expose women who are forming secret online relationships and posting "revealing pictures"? (After looking at the picture included with the article I began to wonder just how revealing these pictures were. Maybe they just showed these women exposing their arms and/or legs? That seems like it would be enough to enrage officials in such a strict Sunni Islam society.) The only difference here is the punishments: not getting the job you applied for because you posted pictures of yourself and your friends binge drinking on St. Patty's Day vs. potentially being beaten and shot by a male relative or government official for lewd online behavior. As the woman in the article mentioned, "blocking the site would be pointless because people would simply switch to similar sites." If this is truly the case, then these women must value their freedom of expression enough that they are willing to risk their own safety to engage in activities that their culture deems taboo. It could just be that I'm coming from an extremely Westernized viewpoint, but if enough members of the culture are so strongly against cultural practices, doesn't that mean they must be somewhat outdated?