Most of the world's dictators share a common fear, and it's not of the United States, NATO, the United Nations or any outside entity. No, the force that most threatens them is social media.

Originally designed as enhanced online chat forums for young Americans, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the rest have spread around the world and are now being used as cudgels against authoritarian leaders in places like Vietnam, Russia, Belarus and Bahrain. In those states and so many others, the leaders are attacking tweeters and bloggers as if they were armed revolutionaries. And the repression is spreading.

In India a few days ago, a 21-year-old medical student posted a mildly critical comment about a Hindu political figure who'd just died. Within 24 hours, police arrested her and a friend who had "liked" the student's Facebook post and charged them with engaging in hateful, offensive speech -- this in one of the world's strongest democracies. (Police let them go a few days later.)

A more typical example comes from Belarus. There, President Alexander Lukashenko, commonly known as Europe's last dictator, seems to be fighting online verbiage all the time.

Recently, Ecuador's Supreme Court turned down an extradition request from Belarus for a blogger who fled there after the government charged him with fraud. Alexander Barankov had been blogging about widespread government corruption. That particular extradition denial stands as a bold demonstration of the fraud charge's absurdity because Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president and an acolyte of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is no champion of press freedom. Far from it. And yet he defied the Belarus request.

Baranakov is hardly the only example. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe declaimed Lukashenko's record of arresting journalists and bloggers, saying "unfortunately recent detentions and searches in Minsk and elsewhere in the country show continued efforts to muzzle dissenting voices and clamp down on freedom of expression online."

Iran, not surprisingly, is even tougher. Bloggers are given long prison terms or sentenced to death, charged with "enmity against God" and subverting national security. Human-rights groups say the bloggers and tweeters are tortured in jail. In mid-November, one died in police custody for unexplained reasons.

Iran is actually trying to set up its own internal Internet. There, the government says, "unregulated social media and other content likely to encourage dissent" simply won't be available.

But the sad truth is, the dictators whose people are the most repressed -- locked in abject poverty -- don't have to worry about the social-media problem. In Laos, Cambodia, Eritrea, Mozambique and a handful of other states, most people have no access to computers or cell phones. Many of them are illiterate and couldn't use the devices even if they had them. That leaves their leaders to trample over their rights with near-full impunity.

China demonstrates this better than any nation. The state's economic-development program pulled millions of Chinese out of poverty. Previously, Chinese were relatively quiescent. But with prosperity came a new understanding of how venal and repressive the Chinese Communist Party really is. So millions of Chinese took to new social-media platforms to complain.

Now China spends more money on internal security -- including a massive online censorship office -- than it does on its military. Persistent online critics are imprisoned or worse. That demonstrates a clear fact: The Chinese government fears its own people far more than it does any outside power.

Other states are catching up. Russia is implementing a massive new online Internet filtering system, ostensibly to protect children from offensive sites. But human-rights advocates are warning that it can just as easily be used to block social-media commentary the government doesn't like.

In Oman this fall, six people were jailed for defaming the state on Facebook. That came after the National Human Rights Commission of Oman (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) labeled those posts and others "negative writings that violate Islamic principles."

Nearby, Bahrain is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, it jailed a human-rights advocate for tweeting criticism of the nation's tyrannical prime minister. Then authorities arrested four more Bahrainis for Twitter posts considered to be critical of the king.

At the same time, though, the government allowed one of the state's biggest companies, a telecom provider named Zain Bahrain, to sponsor a major business conference there, undoubtedly because it will be quite profitable for the island's hotels, restaurants and other travel-related businesses.

What was the conference about? It's title: The Social Media Masters Forum.

NY police: Man kills grandmother in TV show fight

KINGS PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Police say a New York man has killed his grandmother after they argued over what TV show to watch.

They say Clarence Newcomb was arrested Friday at the home he shared with 82-year-old Kathleen Newcomb in Kings Park, on New York's Long Island.

Suffolk County police say a man called them at 4:35 a.m. to report the woman was lying on the floor. Officers say they found her dead.

Medical officials haven't determined how she died. No weapons have been recovered.

Police say 25-year-old Clarence Newcomb told them he and his grandmother had argued over what to watch on TV. Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick says he doesn't know what shows were involved.

Newcomb is in custody and can't be reached for comment. Police say he's unemployed. He faces arraignment Saturday.

Violence in Northern Ireland for 3rd day over flag

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Northern Ireland police used water cannons to fend off brick-hurling protesters in Belfast on Saturday as violent demonstrations over flying the British flagstretched into a third straight day.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it was investigating reports that a number of shots were fired at police lines. A 38-year-man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, police said.

More than 1,000 demonstrators marched on Belfast's city hall earlier Saturday afternoon amid a heavy police presence. While the rally passed largely without incident, police then came under attack from a mob of more than 100 people hurling bricks and fireworks. Two men were arrested, police said.

Protesters have been out in force — with sometimes violent results — since a Dec. 3 decision byBelfast City Council to stop flying the British flag year-round.

Such issues of symbolism frequently inflame sectarian passions in Northern Ireland, where Protestants mainly want to stay in the United Kingdom and Catholics want to unite with the Republic of Ireland.

Many Protestants want the council to reverse its decision about the flag, and dozens of police have been injured in ensuing demonstrations.

Saturday's flare-up followed a tense Friday night in Belfast when nine police officers were injured and 18 rioters arrested during rioting. Police said that more than 30 petrol bombs were thrown at officers, along with ball bearings, fireworks and bricks as they responded to clashes in Protestant sections of the city.

Similar clashes on Thursday saw 10 police injured in east Belfast.

The controversy has also seen death threats made against politicians.

Iran says it is developing software to control social networking sites

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's police chief says the Islamic Republic is developing new software to controlsocial networking sites.

Gen. Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam was quoted in Iranian newspapers Saturday as saying the new software will prevent Iranians from being exposed to malicious content online while allowing users to enjoy the benefits of the Internet. He did not say when the software would be introduced.

Moghadam also did not specify which social networking sites would be affected, but both Facebook and Twitter are popular in Iran.

Iranians currently have access to most of the Internet, although authorities block some sites affiliated with the opposition, as well as those that are seen as promoting dissent or considered morally corrupt.

Iran created a government agency last year to oversee Internet usage in the country.

'Fiscal cliff' crisis barely over, Obama presses for action on raising US borrowing limit

HONOLULU, Hawaii - President Barack Obama is hailing a last-minute deal that pulled the country back from the "fiscal cliff," but says it's just one step in a broader effort to boost the economy and shrink federal deficits.

Obama said in his radio and Internet address Saturday that the new law, approved by Congress on New Year's Day and signed Thursday, raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans while preventing a middle-class tax increase that could have thrown the economy back into recession.

With one crisis for the short term, Obama faces new battles in Congress over raising the country's $16.4 trillion borrowing limit, as well as more than $100 billion in automatic spending cuts for the military and domestic programs which were delayed by two months under the compromise.

Lawmakers promise to replace those across-the-board cuts with more targeted steps that could take longer to implement.

Obama, speaking from Hawaii, where he is on vacation with his family, said he is willing to consider more spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the deficit.

But he said he "will not compromise" over his insistence that Congress lift the federal debt ceiling. The nation's credit rating was downgraded the last time lawmakers threatened inaction on the debt ceiling, in 2011.

"Our families and our businesses cannot afford that dangerous game again," Obama said.

If elected officials from both parties "focus on the interests of our country above the interests of party, I'm convinced we can cut spending and raise revenue in a manner that reduces our deficit and protects the middle class," Obama said.

In the Republican address, Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan said that as attention again turns to the debt limit, "we must identify responsible ways to tackle Washington's wasteful spending."

Americans know that "when you have no more money in your account and your credit cards are maxed out, then the spending must stop," Camp said.

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Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov