When social media isn’t used for posting pictures of your cat or telling your friends how great that movie you just watched is, it can actually be really useful. A bunch of protesters in India are using YouTube and Facebook to spread awareness about their fight.

Over in Australia, police have, with Facebook’s help, cracked an international child pornography ring. Of course it helped that the ring operated on the social networking site to begin with.

Not that people care—people are signing up for these sites in droves. Even the older folk are getting in on the act; a CNN article reports that up to 42% of all internet users aged 50 and above use social networking sites in May, an increase since the start of the year.

In other social media news, location has been making headlines for a few weeks now, but there’s been nothing groundbreaking about them. Another CNN piece explains just where these check-in apps are heading toward, and to what effect.

And while Facebook Places might have launched to great aplomb, Mashable users still prefer Foursquare 57% to 18%.

Facebook, YouTube Used as Weapons in Kashmir Fight [AP]

Australian Police, Facebook Crack Child Porn Ring [AP]

What's Next For 'Check-in' Apps? [CNN]

Foursquare Beats Facebook Places in Reader Vote [Mashable]

Report: Older Users Flocking to Facebook, Twitter [CNN]