Twitter is apparently gaining traction with its “Twitter Access” program, which makes its services available in emerging markets at little to no cost to users. “That program has picked up over the past year, and has now grown to include ‘under 100’ total deals with mobile operators,” TechCrunch reports. The effort mirrors an ongoing effort by Facebook, Facebook Zero, to established a foothold in economically challenged developing countries. 

Facebook was apparently at the center of a three-year cyber espionage campaign forged by a group of Iranian hackers. Targets included a four-star U.S. Navy admiral, U.S. lawmakers and ambassadors, Reuters reports, citing findings from cyber intelligence firm ISight Partners. “The hackers set up false accounts on Facebook and other online social networks for … 14 personas, populated their profiles with fictitious personal content, and then tried to befriend target victims.” 

Going forward, Twitter sees itself as a key player in democratic elections around the world. “In India, Twitter [recently] worked closely with politicians … who used the platform for election campaigning, and also partnered with mobile and media firms to distribute tweets online and offline,” Reuters reports. “Now, with polling due in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the United States later this year, the San Francisco-based company plans to take its India lessons abroad.” 

In what must be one of the odder meeting requests ever received by Mark Zuckerberg, an Iranian court has summoned Facebook’s CEO over complaints of privacy violation. Following up on a report from state news agency ISNA, Reuters writes: “The case underscores the growing struggle between moderate Iranian president Hassan Rouhani's drive to increase Internet freedoms and demands by the conservative judiciary for tighter controls.” 

Facebook this week said it plans to favor explicitly shared stories in users’ News Feed over auto-shares. “Facebook isn’t giving up on auto-sharing,” TechCrunch reports. “It just doesn’t want to show [users] all those Spotify listens, Instagram Likes and more in the News Feed.” Therefore, for better reach rates, TechCrunch suggests formally opening a “share to Facebook” window in a third-party app, adding your own description or content, and then posting it to the News Feed.  

Facebook could face resistance from European regulators over its proposed WhatsApp deal. Oddly enough, the social giant asked the European Commission to review the deal in an effort to “avoid potentially burdensome competition probes in multiple European Union countries,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “The EU wasn't expected to review the deal because the acquisition is unlikely to materially boost Facebook's revenue.” 

Has Evan Williams once again struck gold with Medium, a blogging platform he’s been nurturing since stepping away from day-to-day duties at Twitter? Despite devoting nearly 1,200 words to the topic, David Carr isn’t quite sure. Writing in The New York Times, he calls Medium “an amorphous-sounding company that could be one more curio of the Internet age or might end up taking over the world.” 

Call us incredulous, but some data scientists claim to have discovered the secret to getting what you want from strangers. Put simply, it’s all about narratives of need, the Stanford University scientists say. The researchers reached this conclusion after analyzing the success of countless requests for pizza on Reddit’s “The Random Acts of Pizza” section, where people literally ask others for a free meal. 

Mike Hudack, director of product at Facebook, is not impressed with Vox.com -- Ezra Klein’s new home for news analysis. He thinks the site is relying too heavily on trivial stories, like denim care. In response, Matthew Yglesias of Vox.com blames Facebook, which, he argues, encourages people to share -- and publishers to produce -- silly stories. “For better or for worse, traffic on the Internet right now is all about Facebook sharing behavior,” he notes.“On Facebook, what is seen is driven by an algorithm that Facebook controls -- if they wanted to promote more hard news they could do …

On a case-by-case basis, Twitter appears to be blocking tweets in Pakistan. “At least five times this month, a Pakistani bureaucrat … asked Twitter to shield his compatriots from exposure to accounts, tweets or searches of the social network that he described as ‘blasphemous’ or ‘unethical,’” The New York Times reports.  “The blocking of these tweets … in Pakistan … is the first time the social network has agreed to withhold content there.”