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WikiLeaks is a site notorious for publishing secret information from unknown sources, which can cause some serious damage to the image of regimes, governments and corporations. The aim of the site, whose founder has not been identified is to become an example of truly free press and to "effectively expose deception in government".

Usually, when we hear about internet users and the music industry, the news are connected to lawsuits against piracy. Individual people see themselves as victims of the policy of music publishing corporations. Can they influence the music business at all?

A couple of weeks ago, South Park, well known for its scandalous approach to everything, including all that is sacred to most Americans, used the Islamic prophet, Mohammed as one of the characters. Comedy Central, however, decided to censor the episode, removing all the images connected with the prophet. This started a lot of controversy - both on the part of fundamentalist Muslims, who were offended by the episode, and the defenders of free speech, who disliked the censorship.

Twitter users don't usually think about the consequences of posting aggressive comments, other than being moderated or removed from someone's friends' list. It turns out, however, that whatever we post on Twitter (or any other site really) can be noticed, evaluated and considered dangerous by legal forces.

Social networking sites allow people to be anonymous, while sharing private information about their life and problems. A lot of awkward and silly situations arise from that, of course, but for some people it can be the first chance to find support they need, but can't find in local, real life communities.

Yesterday morning Chile was struck by an earthquake of nearly 9 points on Richter scale. It was quickly called a disaster, and so far there are about 700 victims, and their numbers might rise.
The first social media service to get a comprehensive view of the disaster was Twitter. Chile citizens posted photos and tweets about what exactly is going on around them. To see for yourself, look for tweets with #Chile #Earthquake or #Terremoto Chile.

The rules of behavior on social networking services are still vague. New issues appear all the time, usually after some really embarrassing situation, but we still don't have a decent code, or etiquette, and usually have to rely on our own intuition or apply rules we usually follow off line. So, what do FB users think about the appropriate and awkward online behaviors?

Chatroulette was created just a couple of weeks ago by a 17 year old Andrey Ternovskiy. The idea is simple, and ingenious at the same time, and It's surprising that nobody has come up with it earlier. Basically it's a chat program, and users are supposed to have webcams on. But chatting with a webcam is possible on Yahoo, Gmail chat, Msn and many other platforms, so what's the catch?

Geolocation is one of the hottest trends in social networking right now. Many sites and applications use it, and some, like the much admired Foursquare are based on this idea. And it's great - helps people find friends who are in the same area, or get personalized information about the most interesting places near by, or just let's people boast about how interesting their travels are.

A couple of months ago, in June 2009 we witnessed a new and significant way of using the social media - to publish the facts about the extent of terror and violence of Iran's post election protests. People managed to go around the censorship, posted thousands of tweets, pictures and videos, showing what was really going on.