On April 22nd in Washington DC, the Diplomatic Courier, United Nations Foundation, and the Digital Diplomacy Coalition held an event exploring the future of public diplomacy in the digital age. People around the world joined the conversation through Twitter and Livestream, bringing questions and insights from countries such as Nigeria, Australia, Mexico, and Turkey.

Of the world’s seven billion people, about 2.4 billion have access, in some way, to the Internet. The ability to connect many-to-many has led to some remarkable events and phenomena in recent years. The tools did not cause the Arab Spring, but they did allow for better organizing, amplification of messages, and the ability to show the world what was happening minute-by-minute, tweet-by-tweet.

For the past decade the Molotov song “Gimme the Power” has served as an anthem of youth rebellion decrying corrupt police and politicians in Mexico. This week, its lyrics became the banner under which thousands of young people protested online and in the streets against Mexico’s new telecommunications law, which they believe infringes on their civil rights.

For nearly six decades, South Korea's (ROK) approach to security has focused on sustaining the status quo: Maintaining deterrence and a robust defence posture in order to prevent another major conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

Americans like to associate their spam with other countries. They joke about Chinese spammers or Nigerians or Russians. It's a time-honored nativist tradition. But, according to the new quarterly report from the security and spam monitoring company, Sophos, computers inside these United States relay—by far—the most spam. And we have in every quarter of the past year.

Turkey's government has said it still hopes Twitter will open an office in the country, a day after the social networking site ruled out any such move. In a statement on Thursday following several days of talks with Twitter executives, Communication Minister Lutfi Elvan said Turkey had suggested that the company open a "liaison office" to improve coordination with the government.

In May 2012, the law school at George Mason University hosted a forum billed as a “vibrant discussion” about Internet search competition. Many of the major players in the field were there — regulators from the Federal Trade Commission, federal and state prosecutors, top congressional staffers.

For over a decade, the United States has promoted a free and open Internet as a central tenet of its foreign policy. To date, this has most visibly involved shaming governments that limit access to online content and developing tools that help individuals circumvent censorship and surveillance.