Twitter

Many people are passionate about Twitter -- including President Donald Trump. It is not hard to see why, either -- it allows you to quickly share a communication with the world in 140 or fewer characters. While some people see the character limitation as stupid and unnecessary, others would argue that it forces the user to get to the point. Heck, limitations can breed creativity too -- getting a message across in 140 characters can be a fun brain exercise.

Unfortunately, Twitter seems intent on potentially ruining its service by literally doubling the number of characters from 140 to 280. Before you run to the service to test this out, please know that it is only available to a small group of testers for now.

Donald Trump has been a divisive character for many years, and this trend that has continued with his presidency. On Twitter, his unique approach to dealing with world issues and global leaders has caused, to varying degrees, amusement, disgust and horror. In particular, his recent handling of North Korea has raised concern.

His continual references to Kim Jong-un as Little Rocket Man, and his suggestion that the leader and Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho "won't be around much longer" and that the US may have "no choice but to totally destroy" North Korea has been seen by the Asian country as "a clear declaration of war". People are asking why Twitter has not taken action against such naked threats on its platform. Now the company has spoken out, explaining that the "newsworthiness" of Trump's tweets is why they have been left untouched.

All of the major players have been busy creating "lite" versions of their apps and online experiences. Microsoft has LinkedIn Lite, Facebook has both Facebook Lite and Facebook Messenger Lite, and Google has its Search Lite app.

Back in April, Twitter decided to get in on the lite action by launching Twitter Lite, a cut-down, data-friendly version of its mobile website. Now the micro-blogging service has gone further and released a Twitter Lite app.

UK prime minister Theresa May has called on the likes of Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Facebook to act faster to remove terrorism-related and extremist content. At the moment, it takes an average of 36 hours to remove content shared by the likes of Isis, and May wants this slashed to just two hours.

But even this is not enough for the government. It wants technologies to be developed -- or refined -- that will identify this sort of content and prevent it from getting online in the first place. Facebook agrees -- its love of AI is well-known -- but the solution to online extremism is not as simple as saying "technology firms need to do more."

The latest report from risk management and cyber security company Nopsec looks at the use of social media in risk analysis.

Twitter in particular seems to be becoming the go-to resource for security researchers and attackers looking to disseminate proof-of-concept exploits.

There are two features that Twitter users constantly ask for -- the ability to edit tweets, and the ability to send tweets that are longer than 140 characters. Tweet editing is not likely to come any time soon, and longer tweets are also an uncertainty, but Twitter could be about to make tweetstorming much easier.

Tweetstorms are the alternative to longer tweets: messages that won't fit into 140 characters are simply manually split up over multiple tweets. Manually doing this is a chore, but there is hope on the horizon. A hidden tweetstorm composer has been unearthed in the Twitter Android app, indicating that the feature is undergoing internal testing.

Android and iOS users who like to browse Twitter in bed were pleased when a night mode was added to the mobile apps, saving middle-of-the-night blindings. Now night mode has made its way to the web.

Whether you see night mode as an eye-saving feature, or just a way to get in touch with your inner goth, the arrival of the feature has been long-awaited by users.

Online hate crimes are to be treated as seriously as abuse offenses committed offline as the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) aims to crack down on abuse and harassment on the likes of Facebook and Twitter. New policies covering hate crime relating to race, religion disability, sexuality -- including, for the first time, specific bisexual hate crimes -- will lead to harsher sentences for offenders.

Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions, wants to do more to fight online abuse because of the risk of it escalating into the sort of extremist hate seen in relation to events in Charlottesville. She says that abuse of all kind, and on all platforms, should be treated with equal severity.

On Monday August 21, people across the US will have the chance to witness a total solar eclipse. While there is a great deal of excitement about the phenomenon, viewers need to be careful to use special eclipse glasses (not just sunglasses) or some form of projection technique to avoid serious eye damage.

But perhaps the safest option is to watch the eclipse on your computer screen or mobile. Twitter has teamed up with the Weather Channel to provide a live stream, so even if you're not in the path of totality, there's no need to miss out.

The nightmare continues for HBO. After suffering a hack and then leaks of various shows including Game of Thrones, hackers have now struck at the network's social media accounts. The hacking group OurMine took control of the main HBO Twitter accounts, as well as those for various shows, including Game of Thrones.

OurMine is no newcomer to the scene -- the group has previously hacked Mark Zuckerberg and Netflix's Twitter accounts. Separately to this, what has been dubbed the "4th Wave HBO Leak" has been made available online. This time the data dumps include content relating to Game of Thrones season 7, and Westworld season 2.

Julian Assange has reached out to James Damore, the software engineer fired by Google for publishing an "anti-diversity manifesto." The WikiLeaks founder used his Twitter account (currently sporting a fake "verified" badge) to offer him a job.

Linking to an article entitled "Google Is Not What It Seems" about his book When Google Met Wikileaks, Assange said: "Censorship is for losers. @WikiLeaks is offering a job to fired Google engineer James Damore."

The fourth episode of the latest season of Game of Thrones has leaked online before its official air date. Download links to the episode -- The Spoils of War -- have been shared on Reddit and Twitter, and the video appears to be a low-quality internal version.

Earlier this week, HBO was the victim of a hack in which 1.5TB of data was stolen. In addition to full episodes of other shows, there were scripts and spoilers for Game of Thrones, and these were subsequently leaked. This time around, however, it does not seem that the hack was the source of the S07E04 leak.

When Twitter revealed its Q2 earnings yesterday the figures weren't quite as bright as people would have hoped. With growth stalling, the company is seeking new ways to bring in money, and its latest idea is a tweet promotion service for a fixed monthly fee.

Twitter is testing a new ad program which automatically promotes tweets and profiles for $99 per month. The program is currently in private beta, but it could be rolled out to a wider audience at any stage.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have failed to impress EU authorities with their proposed revisions to user terms. The three companies have been under pressure to amend their terms to bring them in line with European law.

The European Commission and consumer protection authorities wrote to the tech giants last month, giving them until July 20th to submit proposals about their respective social networks. The companies have until September to implement changes that satisfy Europe, or fines could be handed out.

Abuse, harassment and trolling on Twitter is a serious problem, and something that sees many users -- celebrities in particular -- forced off the site. Having already introduced a quality filter to help reduce unwanted content, Twitter is now making it possible to block notifications from various types of account, such as those that don’t follow you.

As an extra safeguard, you can opt to block notifications from new accounts, thereby helping to avoid the problem of trolls who bypass blocks by signing up under a new username. The "advanced filter settings" are available online as well as in the iOS and Android apps.