The active presence of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Facebook and Twitter has been a great tool and venue for Iran’s public diplomacy with Western journalists. It has also served as an unfiltered source of direct interaction between Zarif and the Iranian Internet-savvy youth.

A World Cup berth appears unlikely after their home defeat to Nigeria but a growing legion of Ethiopian fans are taking to Twitter to lure overseas-based players eligible to represent the Walyas. Nigeria came from behind to snatch a last-gasp 2-1 win over Ethiopia in the first leg of their playoff in Addis Ababa after two goals from Emmanuel Emenike helped them take a big step towards next year's finals in Brazil.

How does what we know help practitioners makes sense of how to integrate technology into their mission? We know that information and communication technology can be: A) persuasive by its ability to facilitate or enable other attempts at persuasion, B) persuasive as a transmission vehicle (the medium endows some form of credibility or legitimacy), or C) persuasive as a kind of context for communication, an intermediary, that enables influential power of social ties.

Glenn Rogers lives in Brooklyn. He’s from Australia. Most importantly, he has no affiliation with Rogers Communications. Yet none of those easily obtainable facts were enough to save the entrepreneur from being on the receiving end of a torrent of angry messages unleashed by Rogers customers in the throws of a collective Twitter fit Wednesday night.

Should public diplomacy policy-makers turn to digital diplomacy tools for the future of practice? I ask this question to provoke some reflection among public diplomacy watchers beyond the quick criticism of tweeting ambassadors and social media campaigns. There seems to be some debate over whether or not digital media practices represent the future of US public diplomacy.

Yesterday, the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported that Iran’s Communication and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi, talking about social-media websites such as Facebook, said, “It has not been planned that these websites will be unblocked, and they will remain in the same condition they were in before.”

Nearly 50 people were killed in the Muzaffarnagar sectarian riots last month. According to media reports, a fake video passed around through social media, contributed to flaming religious passions. This prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to say that while people should have freedom to express their opinions, social media cannot be misused “to create communal tension and spread hatred”.