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PJFenwick is doing a PhD on facebook privacy and his explorations have shown that even when you lock up your settings, your friends (and friends of) can leak your information all over the place. "But by far the most interesting part of all of this have been dark users. Like dark matter, these users are not directly observable, usually because they've completely disabled API access. In fact, some of these users are completely dark unless you're a friend. They don't show up in search results. They don't show up on friends' lists. You can't send them messages. If you try to navigate to their user page (assuming you know it exists), you get redirected back to your homepage. These users have their privacy settings turned up real high, and are supposed to be hard to find. However like dark matter, dark users are observable due to their effects on the rest of the universe. If a dark user comments on a stream entry, I can see that comment. More importantly, I can see their user-ID, and I can generate a URL to a page that will contain their name. I can then watch for their activities elsewhere. Granted, I can't directly search for their activity, but I can observe their effects on my friends. For want of a better term, I've been calling this "dark stalking". What makes this all rather chilling is that I'm doing all of this via the application API. If your friend has installed an application, then it can access quite a lot of information about you, unless you turn it off. If your friend has granted the application the read_stream privilege, then it can read your status stream. Even if a friend of a friend has done this, and you comment on your friend's status entries, it's possible to infer your existence and retrieve those discussions through dark stalking."

Twitter users have been issued subpoenas from Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett due to the critical comments they've made about the politician. It's interesting how much anonymous comments can make an impact on a public figure's reputation that it forces him to take legal action.  

Twitter receives a grand jury subpoena forcing the company to reveal a user's identity. Interesting how this can be done when the stakes are high, when there is a a political subtext under it. Could this set a precedent for defamation cases?

This study explores an under-studied layer of Chinese Internet censorship: how Chinese Internet companies censor user-generated content, usually by deleting it or preventing its publication. Systematic testing of Chinese blog service providers reveals that domestic censorship is very decentralized with wide variation from company to company. Test results also showed that a great deal of politically sensitive material survives in the Chinese blogosphere, and that chances for its survival can likely be improved with knowledge and strategy. The study concludes that choices and actions by private individuals and companies can have a significant impact on the overall balance of freedom and control in the Chinese blogosphere.

A comprehensive study conducted by the Pew Center for Research in the States looks at one of the demographics that experience the 'digital divide' - people with a chronic illness. The results indicate that although people with chronic diseases are less likely to have access to the internet, those that do use it productively to contribute to the online bank of knowledge about health-realated topics, as well as forming supportive online communities.

thanks Tiana, I'm actually covering a related topic in my DRP journal article. This is really helpful.