Twitter has shared concepts for four features that could give users more control over who can see, read and find their accounts, and it wants feedback from the public on what it showed off. The first of those features would make it easier for those with protected accounts to make their tweets publicly viewable in instances where they want to reply to non-followers. “If you have a protected account and reply to someone who isn’t following you, you may not know they can’t see your reply,” Lena Emara, Twitter people experience designer, wrote in a thread. So one idea is to include a prompt that reminds people of that fact, as well as give them the option to easily switch their tweets to public.

Twitter

Another potential feature would help those with multiple accounts. A mockup Emara shared shows an interface element that would allow you to switch to a different account directly from Twitter’s main composition window. What’s more, the new interface would allow you to see, at a glance, the name, handle and privacy status of your accounts all in one place.

The two other concepts Emara shared focus more on privacy. One of those details a feature that would periodically touch base with users to see if they’re happy with their current discoverability and conversation settings and make it easy to tweak them as needed without visiting the app’s settings menu. Lastly, the second one would create a system for notifying you when people search for your username and give you more control over whether your account is discoverable that way. That’s something that could be significant for limiting online harassment.

Twitter

As with the last time Twitter showed off several concept features, everything you see above “are just ideas and not being built (yet?).” They may never mature into features the company ships. That said, the feedback Twitter collects could inform other tools the company builds in the future.

Roblox is rushing to strike official music deals in the wake of a $200 million lawsuit over alleged copyright violations. TechCrunchreports that Roblox has unveiled a team-up with Sony Music that will bring more of the label's artists to the game platform. The two will collaborate on "innovative music experiences" beyond what you've seen so far, including a Lil Nas X concert in November and a Zara Larsson launch party in May.

The companies didn't say what kind of events you might expect, or when you might see them.

This isn't Roblox's first such deal. The gaming giant reached a similar agreement with BMG in June. It does represent Roblox's largest music pact to date, however, and leaves Universal and Warner as the only two heavyweight labels that haven't signed agreements.

Roblox might not have much choice but to keep making these arrangements. The music industry sued Roblox for allegedly doing little to stop gamers from making virtual boomboxes that stream copyrighted music. That's not including Robloxcore and other music designed for game worlds. The developer maintains that it screens uploaded music and cracks down on violators, but that clearly hasn't been enough for labels convinced Roblox is enabling piracy. Deals could help Roblox persuade Sony, BMG and others to call off their lawsuit, or at least soften the blow.

It seems more and more law enforcement agents are trying to use online platforms' copyright-takedown measures to prevent videos that show them in a bad light from being shared online. A California police officer has tried to use the tactic on a BLM protestor at the Alameda Country courthouse by playing Taylor Swift's Blank Space, as reported by The Washington Post and Variety. His attempt failed, though, and it even backfired spectacularly: The video has almost 800,000 views on Twitter as of this writing, as well as 300,000 views on YouTube. 

The protestor was at the courthouse for the pretrial hearing of Jason Fletcher, the police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter for killing Steven Taylor, a Black man, inside a Walmart. In the video posted by the Anti Police-Terror Project, you'll hear the officer admit that he played the popular Swift song so that it gets a copyright strike on Google's video platform. "You can record all you want, I just know it can't be posted on YouTube," he said. 

When asked if there's an administrative regulation telling cops to play copyrighted music to prevent videos from being shared, the officer replied: "Not that I know of." Alameda County sheriff's office spokesperson Sgt. Ray Kelly told The Post that there's no policy barring what the officer did in the video, but that the office does not "condone" his behavior.

Back in February, several police officers in Beverly Hills had also been caught on video seemingly trying to get a prominent LA activist banned from Instagram by triggering is copyright filters. They kept playing songs while being filmed, including Sublime's Santeria and The Beatles' Yesterday. 

Chessie Thacher, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Northern California, told The Post that the tactic "does seem to be a trend right now." Thacher added: "People have the right to film the police, and efforts by the police to infringe on this right are unconstitutional. So if they're using copyright laws to prevent people from exercising their right — and amplifying what they’re seeing — then that's a real problem."

Riot Games is no stranger to making music. With K/DA, the studio has one of the world’s most popular virtual bands, but it’s latest musical project is different. On Friday, Riot released Sessions: Vi, a 37-track album of instrumental beats with contributions from artists like Chromonicci and Junior State. What makes the release special is that streamers and content creators can use all the songs from Sessions: Vi for free.

Riot hopes the album and future ones like it will help ease some of the copyright headaches Twitch streamers have had to deal with for much of the past year. At the start of last June, Twitch got a “sudden influx” of DMCA takedown notices. The majority of those targeted archived broadcasts that had been up on the platform for years. The company has tried in a variety of ways to prevent more takedown notifications from coming in, but those efforts don’t seem to have addressed the problem. That's because in May Twitch said it received another batch of approximately 1,000 individual DMCA notifications. For some streamers, those notices represent a potential ban from the service.

You can stream Sessions: Vi on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube. 

Amazon has opened a new front in its streaming battle with Netflix. The company is bringing the anime hit Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon A Time to Prime Video globally, barring Japan, on August 13th, according to Deadline. Together with a revised version released last month, the fourth and final chapter in the movie saga has raked in more than $86 million at Japanese theaters, making it the biggest earner of the year. For those who missed the previous entries, the good news is they're also coming to Prime Video, including Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance and Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo.

Blending mech action with intimate teenage drama, the Evangelion franchise became a pop culture behemoth in Japan and a revered cult classic overseas. Netflix ran the original series back in 2019 along with two films — Evangelion: Death True² and The End of Evangelion — as part of its push into Japanese animation. Though it probably helped to expand the show's reach, some legacy fans were upset that Netflix chose to go with a new voice cast for its English dub instead of the original players. More recently, the streamer announced that it's launching around 40 anime shows and movies in a bid to capture subscribers in Asia.

Amazon, on the other hand, has dabbled in anime in the past, most notably through its Blade of the Immortal adaptation in 2019. Evangelion is a big get for the company and success could prompt it to wade further into the genre.

Facebook is testing new prompts to reach users who may be “becoming an extremist.” The in-app messages, which Facebook has confirmed is a test, direct users to resources aimed at combating extremism.

CNN first reported the new prompts, which have been spotted by Twitter users in recent days. One version is aimed at people who may know someone falling into extremism. “Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist,” it reads. 

Another prompt appears to warn users who may have encountered extremist content on the platform. “Violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment,” it says. “You can take action now to protect yourself and others.”

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed the messages are “part of our ongoing Redirect Initiative work.” The initiative is part of a broader effort by Facebook to fight extremism on its platform by working with groups like Life After Hate, which helps people leave extremist groups. The prompts will send users to Life After Hate or other resources, according to CNN.

It’s not clear how Facebook is determining which users may be most likely to be affected by extremism, but the issue has become a hot-button topic for Facebook. The company was widely criticized for not doing enough to prevent QAnon and other fringe groups from using its platform to grow their followings. Facebook has also been accused of downplaying its role in enabling the events of January 6th. And when the Oversight Board recommended the company conduct its own inquiry into the issue, the company said investigations should remain in the hands of law enforcement and elected officials.

Twitter is thinking about new ways to share tweets with specific groups of people. The company showed off two concepts for new features that would allow users to target tweets toward specific audiences without having to switch accounts or change privacy settings.

The first would enable people to designate “trusted friends” so some tweets would only be visible to that group. The idea is similar to Instagram’s “close friends” feature for Stories. According to an image shared by Twitter designer Andrew Courter, Twitter’s version would allow users to toggle the audience much like the way you can choose who is able to reply to you.

He added that “perhaps you could also see trusted friends' Tweets first” in your timeline, which would offer another alternative to the chronological or algorithmic “home” timelines Twitter currently offers.

Twitter

Another feature would allow people to take on different personas or “facets” from the same account. For example, a user could have a professional identity, where they tweet about work-related topics, and a personal one that’s meant more for friends and family. According to the images, users could have the option of making any one persona public or private, and new followers would be able to choose which “facet” they want to see tweets from.

Finally, Courter showed off a new concept for filtering replies that would allow users to choose specific words or phrases “they prefer not to see.” Then, if a user who is replying or mentioning the user tries to use one of those words or phrases, Twitter will let them know the words go against that person’s preference.

Twitter

According to the images shared by Courter, the feature wouldn’t prevent anyone from sending a tweet using the offending words, but it would make it less visible to the person on the receiving end. The idea is similar to other kinds of anti-bullying nudges Twitter has employed in the past, but would go a step further as each user could set their own conversational “boundaries.”

All these features are still just ideas — Courter noted that “we’re not building these yet” — so they may never actually launch. But the company is looking for feedback on the designs, so they could inform future tools Twitter does decide to build. At the very least, it sheds some light on how Twitter is thinking about issues like identity.

EA is reportedly working on a remake of Dead Space. You read that right. After more than eight years of the franchise collecting dust, VentureBeat reports EA has tasked its Motive studio to develop a Resident Evil 2-style remake of the first game in the series. According to writer Jeff Grubb, fans should expect an experience that uses the original game as a “strong foundation,” but features modern visuals and gameplay tweaks introduced in later Dead Space games.

Grubb first hinted at the possibility of the series coming back during an episode of the GamesBeat Decides podcast, saying EA would announce a revival at its upcoming Play event on July 22nd. Eurogamer and Gematsu later corroborated his claims, noting they had heard similar information. It’s also worth noting Grubb was the first person to report that EA was working on Mass Effect Legendary Edition. And while it’s always good to be skeptical, there have been other tantalizing hints that EA will resurrect Dead Space. Just yesterday, someone noticed the company had updated the official Dead Space YouTube page following years of inactivity to change the channel’s profile picture. With EA Play a mere three weeks away, we won’t have to wait long to see if the rumors are true. 

Alongside Oculus VR and livestreams, Facebook's gaming ambitions also include the cloud. Today, the company is making free game streaming available to 98 percent of the mainland US and bringing on board a major partner in Ubisoft. Facebook says it has now scaled-up its cloud computing infrastructure to the extent that it can roll out the service to 100 percent of the US by the fall. An international rollout is also underway, beginning in Canada and Mexico and expanding to Western and Central Europe by early 2022.

While its rivals Google and Amazon have opted for a standalone cloud gaming service for a monthly subscription, Facebook has built its offering into its main social network and accompanying Android app. Unlike the competition, which deliver console and PC games over the internet, the social network is focusing on smaller free-to-play mobile titles that it says are easier to host at its data centers. 

After launching cloud gaming on Android in a handful of US states last October, Facebook says it has added 25 titles to the service, including newcomers Roller Coaster Tycoon Touch by Atari, Lego Legacy Heroes Unboxed and Dragon Mania Legends by Gameloft and State of Survival by FunPlus. It's also redesigned its Play section with new categories, including a list of the top games in the US, improved filtering and sorting options.

More than 1.5 million people play cloud-streamed games on Facebook every month, the company revealed. With 195 million daily users in North America and more than 1.87 billion global users, the service has a big runway ahead of it. Despite offering less games than the competition, Facebook will be hoping that its focus on mobile titles can help it to thrive in the lucrative game streaming arena. The cloud gaming market will be worth an estimated $1.4 billion this year and over $5 billion in 2023, according to research firm NewZoo.

To bolster its appeal, Facebook is partnering with France-based developer Ubisoft. The studio's game subscription service is already available on Google Stadia and Amazon Luna, but (for now at least) Facebook will only host its mobile gaming titles. Ubisoft games available on the service include Assassin’s Creed Rebellion, Hungry Shark Evolution and Hungry Dragon, with Mighty Quest and Trials Frontier launching in the coming months. Facebook also recently acquired Unit 2, the developer behind game creation platform Crayta, with plans to integrate its tools into its cloud gaming platform.

On the infrastructure side, Facebook is focusing on lowering latency caps to allow it to host even more game genres across multiple devices. Currently, it says its "sweet spot" is in mobile sports, card, simulation, strategy, action-adventure, and puzzle titles, but it plans to add more variety to the mix in the coming months. 

Facebook says it is still working to get cloud gaming onto iOS devices. Though its gaming app is available on iPhones and iPads, it doesn't include playable games due to Apple's restrictions on third-party software.

By now, gamers are accustomed to receiving freebies through Sony's PlayStation Plus and Microsoft's Xbox Games with Gold perks. Now, Amazon is here to remind you that it offers gaming benefits for Prime members, too. From today through to September 1st, the subscription service is giving away three classic LucasArts PC games on the first of every month. The trio includes The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, followed by Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and, finally, Sam & Max: Hit The Road. 

Compared to its expedited deliveries and Prime Video streaming, Amazon's gaming goodies (including free titles and loot) inevitably feel like the lesser of its Prime perks. These certified classics should therefore help to boost its appeal with nostalgic gamers. 

Since its revival in January, the Disney-owned Lucasfilm Games brand has been busy retooling its franchises for newer platforms. In honor of Monkey Island’s 30th anniversary, Limited Run Games released a comprehensive collector’s edition back in October that assembled all five games in the series, including Telltale’s Tales of Monkey Island. In June, Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual! brought the anthropomorphic detectives to Oculus VR. While Indy is about to star in a new game from MachineGames, the studio behind the modern Wolfenstein series, with Bethesda's Todd Howard serving as an executive producer.