When the United States attempts to makes its own versions of hit U.K. shows, we always seem to fail (The Office notwithstanding). America’s Got Talent has given us no Susan Boyle equivalent, and we remember the mercifully short-lived U.S. Coupling primarily as a cautionary tale. And so it was with trepidation that I learned that my precious My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, a British reality show highlighting the over-the-top celebrations, traditional gender roles, and midriffs of the U.K.’s Romany Gypsies and Irish travelers, was due for an American makeover.

Every news organization needs a social media strategy. Even China's government-controlled Xinhua News Agency now "tweets" news bulletins through Twitter-like microblogs called weibo -- through which more than 300 million users share details of their daily lives, jokes, gossip, and news.

It takes a strong stomach and a thick skin to be a female activist fighting online censorship in Pakistan. Sana Saleem has both.

The 24-year-old founder of a Karachi-based free expression group Bolo Bhi has been accused of supporting "blasphemy." On Twitter, a chilling message made the rounds last month: "this @sanasaleem is a prostitute who feature in porn movies #throwacidonsana." Her photo was posted in pornography forums.

In the United States, under two successive administrations of both parties, laws have been passed, policies implemented and corporate practices evolved that make it much easier for government agencies to track and access citizens’ private digital communications – stored ‘in the cloud’ on corporate servers or transmitted through privately operated internet and wireless services – than it is for agents to search or carry out surveillance of our physical homes, offices, vehicles and mail.