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A couple Pakistani papers and TV networks were deceived by false US diplomatic cables [EPA] Several leading Pakistani newspapers have acknowledged that they were hoaxed, after publishing reports based on fake WikiLeaks cables that contained crude anti-India propaganda. The reports, which featured prominently in several papers on Thursday, cited alleged US diplomatic cables as confirming many right-wing Pakistani views and conspiracy theories about the country's arch enemy India and the disputed Kashmir region. Much of Pakistan's media toes a pro-military, anti-Indian line, which was reflected by the papers' extensive coverage of the fake memos. The instigators of the hoax remain unclear, though the material appeared to have originated on a news website that features anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani articles.

The media world's fetishization of social media has reached idol-worshipping proportions. Media conference agendas are filled with panels devoted to social media and how to use social tools to amplify coverage, but you rarely see one discussing what that coverage should actually be about. As Wadah Khanfar, former Director General of Al Jazeera, told our editors when he visited our newsroom last week, "The lack of contextualization and prioritization in the U.S. media makes it harder to know what the most important story is at any given time."

locked in the Perpetual Now

There's no reason why the notion of the scoop can't be recalibrated to mean not just letting us know 10 seconds before everybody else whom Donald Trump is going to endorse but also giving us more understanding, more clarity, a brighter spotlight on solutions

Emails from the Syrian ministries of presidential affairs, foreign affairs, finance, information, transport and culture are all represented among the data to be released

News stories based on the emails will be published by news providers including US news agency Associated Press, Spain's Publico.es and Egypt's al-Masry al-Youm.

was Bildt's mission to find Al Khalifa on Twitter successful? "Yep," Bildt said. Al Khalifa saw his tweet — Bildt's 1,000th — and got in touch with the Swede, who noted that social media isn't the only way he contacts his peers: "I know which ones are on Twitter."

diplomats are likely to use social media ever more frequently, even in contacting each other, if only to show that they move with the times

When it comes to social networking, Bildt has a strong challenger in Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who has a more casual tone on his Twitter and Facebook accounts and official home page.

hus, while Chinese censors have declared the word Mubarak (along with “Egypt” and others) to be “sensitive” and have set up filters to delete any message that contains it, Chinese Web users, in their usual cat-and-mouse game, have invented witty substitutes. These include “Mu Xiaoping” and “Mu Jintao”—which, by playing on the names of China’s own autocrats, get around the censors and up the ante at the same time.

The Egyptian uprising is an awkward fact for China’s rulers because it undermines one of their favorite arguments.

The example of Tunisia raises a related question, equally awkward. For China’s rulers, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the ousted dictator, would have been seen as following their own approach—the so-called “Chinese model” of economic growth combined with political repression—and having much success with it, or so it was assumed for many years. But the Tunisian people took to the streets to overthrow him. Did the people want something more than the Chinese model? How could that be?

“One in three of the world’s Internet users does not have access to an unrestricted Internet,”

At least 119 people are currently in prison just for using the Internet to express their views freely

“Tunisia and Egypt have been removed from the list of Enemies of the Internet following the fall of their governments,” Julliard added. “These countries nonetheless remain under surveillance, as does Libya. The gains of these revolutions must be consolidated and the new freedoms must be guaranteed. We have also placed some democracies – including Australia, South Korea and France – under surveillance because of various measures they have taken that could have negative consequences for online free expression and Internet access.”