Twitter Tweets It’s Going Public

Following in Facebook’s footsteps, the social media site has filed for an IPO; a pastor who believed he could “rape away the gay” in several teens will not serve time in prison; Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent New York Times’ op-ed caused a stir, but it wasn’t his first byline in U.S. newspapers. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

Twitter Is Going Public. Here’s How It Makes Money As long anticipated, Twitter is going public.

The Tsar of All the Concern Trolls Say this for Vladimir Putin: the quality of the propaganda coming out of the Kremlin has dramatically improved since the days of Stalin, the Comintern, and Pravda.

A Good War Now that the US and Russia are not at loggerheads, and Iran is speaking with a much more reasonable voice, we might perhaps cautiously, very cautiously, think about a solution.

The Sikorski Plan How the Polish Foreign Minister shaped a (possible) solution for Syria.

Why Fraudsters Should Applaud the SEC Mary Jo White began her tenure as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission this year with a promise: The agency would require more fraudsters to confess what they did, as opposed to the SEC’s usual practice of letting them pay fines without admitting anything.

The Case Against Rebuilding the Coastline After Superstorm Sandy One year after Sandy, many of the affected communities remain vulnerable to another storm because of indecision about how best to respond.

500 Retweets Will Now Get You Three Years in Prison in China China has stepped up its crackdown on online rumors by issuing a judicial framework for prosecuting offenders.

Pastor Who Claimed He Raped Teenage Boys to Keep Them “Sexually Pure” Will Not Serve Jail Time Iowa pastor and youth counselor Brent Girouex, who claimed with a straight face that he was trying to “cure” teenage boys of their “homosexual urges” by having sex with them, has had his sentence reduced from 17 years in prison to sex offender treatment and probation.

Vladimir Putin’s Complicated History as an Op-Ed Columnist Vladimir Putin’s op-ed piece in The New York Times has certainly turned a lot of heads this week, but this isn’t the first time Putin has found work as an opinion writer in American papers.