• Twitter is making its reply-limiting feature available to all users starting today, meaning users will not have to deal with excessive replies and/or trolls. 
• The company’s director of product management, Suzanne Xie, writes in a blog post “sometimes people are more comfortable talking about what’s happening when they can choose who can reply, starting today, everyone will be able to use these settings so unwanted replies don’t get in the way of meaningful conversations.”
• Before sending a tweet, users will now have three options to choose who can reply: everyone, which is the standard default setting, only people the users follows, or only people the user mentions in the tweet. 
• We will update Our Safety Centre with more detail on this development soon.

• A police officer has pleaded guilty to eight offences relating to indecent images of children.
• PC Darren Bond appeared at Gloucester Crown Court yesterday (10 August) where he admitted charges of possessing, making and distributing indecent images of children through online chat platforms.
• Some of the images were classified as Category A, which are the highest in severity.
• PC Bond, who was suspended in November 2017, was arrested following information received by another law enforcement agency. He will be sentenced at the same court on 21 September.
• Chief Supt Carolyn Belafonte, Head of Investigations, said: “This officer has pleaded guilty to wholly abhorrent offences and we utterly condemn his behaviour”.

• Reddit has banned a community (or subreddit) which was dedicated to posting racist remarks on its platform.
• Reddit’s co-founder, who resigned in June, reported the subreddit publically via twitter to his 340,000 followers.
• The subreddit featured racist and / or sexist remarks normally targeted at black women.
• Reddit has struggled with racist behaviour on it’s platform since it was founded, but has only recently taken steps to remove racist subreddits.

• The UK government is promising voters “the same transparency” in online election and referendum campaigns as they get in leaflets and on posters.
• It wants material from parties and campaign groups to carry a “digital imprint” showing who is behind it.
• Electoral reform campaigners said this “must be just the start” of “cleaning up” UK democracy.
• The government’s plans will be published in full on Wednesday and then go out to public consultation.
• Election leaflets and newspapers have to include who made and paid for the material, although there is no rule on how prominent this branding should be – and all three major UK-wide parties were criticised at last year’s general election for mimicking local newspapers or official letters.

• Microsoft is about to launch a games-streaming service that will let subscribers play top-end Xbox games on a mobile phone.
• This is a Netflix-style service for video games, which many experts think will be the future of gaming.
• The monthly fee is set at £10.99 and will only work on Android devices.
• It is set to be launched on 15 September – but Microsoft told tech site The Verge that a beta test has been launched on 11 August, with about 30 of the promised 100+ games that will come with the full service.
• To play, gamers will need to be an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber to take part, download the beta version of the app from the Google Play Store and also have an Xbox controller that connects to their phone via Bluetooth.

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