On Monday, Google became one of the first American companies to take advantage of newly loosened U.S. sanctions against Iran. With a Google Plus post, the search giant announced that it was offering its Play store to Iranian citizens, allowing them to download free apps from its app marketplace. The Treasury Department, which sets the export restrictions, issued the new rules back in May. But the recent easing is actually part of a longer process that doesn’t just change U.S.

Facebook’s global partnership to expand Internet access in the developing world is getting a lot of attention, despite the campaign’s initial lack of specifics on how it plans to achieve its goals. The initiative — which hopes to get two-thirds of the world’s population online through cheaper smartphones that make a more efficient use of current networks — has been both hailed as a step in the right direction and criticized as a thinly veiled business strategy to reached untapped markets in the developing world.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, announced the launch of Internet.org Wednesday, a project aimed at bringing Internet access to the 5 billion people around the world who can't afford it. The project is the latest initiative led by global-communications giants to combat market saturation in the developed world by introducing the Internet to remote and underprivileged communities.

Overall usage on social media platforms is exploding. Retailers and brands are therefore increasingly focusing their attention on social commerce. Retailers and brands are therefore increasingly focusing their attention on social commerce. But, many struggle with the question: how do you convert a "like," a "tweet," or "pin" into a sale?

Last week, it was brought to a lot of people's attention that al Qaeda were active on Twitter. This was slightly less surprising than it sounds. At a grassroots level, these early masters of the viral beheading video know social media's black magic well enough, which is probably why they decided to crowdsource ideas of how they could improve their online image.

Speaking to youth in Dubai, many feel the Internet is making them more connected, and better informed — but they are not all sure it is changing traditional values as quickly as some might expect. The Arab Social Media report published in June this year showed social media use continuing to grow in the region.

This week we are running a film that first aired on Al Jazeera English six months ago, on another one of Al Jazeera English programmes, Witness. It is the story of two Russian bloggers, Sergei Mukhamedov and Irina Gundareva, who use their blogs to expose corruption and challenge the established order in the different areas in which they live. Mukhamedov is based in Moscow and says he set up his LiveJournal blog to skirt the restrictions on freedom of expression put in place by President Vladimir Putin.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has distanced itself from a series of obscene Facebook posts written by a senior official who is currently in charge of efforts by Israel to improve its image. Daniel Seaman, who was recently promoted to the post of head of Israeli public diplomacy on the internet, is the architect of a controversial new programme to mobilise hundreds of university students to write pro-Israel Facebook posts by giving them scholarships, and formerly served as director of Israel’s Government Press Office.