Online media advocate Clay Shirky has long been a skeptic of newspaper paywalls. He now thinks 2012 could be the year that a critical mass of readers will be willing to pay for news online. Shirky discusses his conversion and Denise Warren, general manager for NYTimes.com, explains the New York Times paywall strategy.

In Consent of the Networked, Rebecca MacKinnon investigates how the governments and corporations that control the digital world can impinge on civil liberties.

Google announced plans to adjust its privacy policy in order to allow the company to merge user data across email, social networking and other services. This has raised eyebrows in the tech community and even in Congress. So what exactly are the problems, and potential benefits, for this change in the policy of one of the world's largest tech companies?

Unlike traditional publishing companies, self-publishing programs like Amazon's Kindle Select lack the keen eyes of publishers, leaving room for copyright violations. It also leaves room for plagiarism. That's exactly what an author and publisher or erotica found to be the case with some best-selling ebooks in the genre.

This past week, the social media network Twitter announced it would begin removing messages from its service within specific countries if asked to do so by one of those countries. The move sparked complaints of censorship from some of its users. Host Rachel Martin has more.

Facebook's Timeline — the long anticipated overhaul of the site — is rolling out across the world this week. Your old posts and photos could be about to make a comeback, so you need to spend some time cleaning house.