Kuwait has moved to regulate the use of social media as part of a continued crackdown against critics of the regime. In April, Minister of State Affairs Mohammed Mubarak al-Sabah announced plans to issue a special law concerning social media. Shortly before his announcement, parliament approved a draft of a new telecommunications law that puts a special committee in charge of “regulating the sectors of telecommunications and information technology to grant the best standards of quality and rates for consumers.”

The proposed law has already come under fire from political groups and activists who criticize it as intentionally ambiguous, granting authorities the power to block websites, monitor phone calls and terminate phone lines for "security reasons." In a public talk organized by the Kuwaiti Progressive Front, lawyer Hussain al-Abdullah said the law allows the telecommunications committee to make decisions to monitor and block without legal permission. He added that security reasons are used as a broad excuse to bypass constitutional restrictions protecting individual rights to free speech and privacy.

Similarly, lawyer al-Hmaidi al-Subaiye said the new law potentially punishes Twitter users with a year in jail for a tweet, and with three years for retweeting. He also claimed that the law gives power to the committee to issue warrants for house searches without a prior legal order. The Umbrella for Kuwait Action (UKA) was the first of local nongovernmental organizations to issue a statement criticizing the proposed law, calling it “part of a general policy to control and silence voices” marking a “worrying retreat in freedoms.”

This outcry comes following the suspension of two local newspapers for two weeks in violation of an order from the public prosecutor to stop publishing any information surrounding the "video tape" controversy. The vaguely named incident refers to a tape submitted by ruling family member and former Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Fahad, who claims it is evidence to a coup plot planned by former Prime Minister Nasser al-Mohammed and former parliament head Jassim al-Khrafi.