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 Brooke Sjoberg Internet Culture Published Jul 3, 2021   Updated Jul 3, 2021, 10:56 am CDT Popular TikToker Niccoya Thomas, or @niccoya on the app, went viral on a different platform last night: Twitter. Posting from her Twitter account @niccoyat, she used Twitter Spaces to host a free a cappella version of the musical Hamilton, and people online are blown away. Thomas, who has 2.4 million TikTok followers, used Twitter’s new audio feature to share live recordings of herself singing and rapping her way through the Broadway musical, which has 46 songs. It’s not clear how long the performance lasted. The timestamps on the first tweet in which she shared her performance of “Guns and Ships,” and the tweet in which she concluded the event, are for 7:42 pm CT Friday, July 2 and 7:52 pm CT that same evening. The description of the event, once it began trending in the U.S., states that “An intrepid singer is performing all the songs from the musical Hamilton as part of a solo and a cappella show on Spaces.” Those who watched the event have shared recordings capturing Thomas’ singing, as well as commentary on what they saw and heard. Apparently, the Embassy of…

Photo:IANS US microblogging and social networking service Twitter has informed the Delhi High Court that it is in the final stages of appointing a resident grievance officer in India. In a reply submitted to the Delhi High Court, Twitter said that even before steps were taken to formalise the appointment of a grievance officer in India, the interim grievance officer had withdrawn his candidature on June 21. "The answering respondent is in the final stages of appointing a replacement while in the meanwhile the grievances of the Indian users are being addressed by the grievance officer," the microblogging platform said in its reply. Appointing a resident grievance officer is one of several norms which Twitter and other social media platforms operating in India have to follow under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Twitter's interim resident grievance officer, Dharmendra Chatur, had quit his post on June 21, following which Twitter had appointed California-based Jeremy Kessel as the new grievance officer for India. However, Kessel's appointment was not in line with the new IT rules, as these rules mandate that all nodal officials, including the grievance redressal officer, should be based in India. A complaint was…

Nearly two weeks after 21-year-old Sha’Carri Richardson made headlines for her victory in the women’s 100-meter event at the U.S. Olympic Team trials, she was hit with a one-month suspension — a penalty that may lead to her exclusion in the Tokyo Olympics. Following the love she received since her monumental win, the Texas native apologized to her fans and sponsors, explaining that she resorted to marijuana to help cope with the loss of her biological mother. Richardson’s supporters, however, were not upset with the 21-year-old and instead took to Twitter to compare her actions and ensuing punishment to the discipline Olympians Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps experienced for similar actions. In 2017, during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Lochte alleged that he and three fellow swimmers were robbed at gunpoint while they were on their way home after a party. He later admitted that he was intoxicated and got into an altercation with the “burglars” as a result of his drunken behavior. “This is such bullshit,” user @owoathkeeper wrote. “Ryan Lochte caused an international incident and that asshole still gets to compete.” @leftcoastbabe questioned the logic behind Richardson’s suspension for marijuana use. “Will ANYONE explain to me…

Enough already — Will they just throw more algorithms at the problem? Tim De Chant - Jul 2, 2021 4:22 pm UTC Four major social media companies yesterday pledged to make efforts to improve the safety of women on their platforms. Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Twitter all signed the pledge in response to the recommendations of a working group of 120 experts organized by the Web Foundation. “For too long, women have been routinely harassed, attacked, and subsequently silenced in online spaces. This is a huge threat to progress on gender equality,” said Web Foundation Senior Policy Manager Azmina Dhrodia in a statement. Abuse against women online has reached epidemic proportions, with 38 percent of women reporting personal experience with online violence, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report. The pledges represent a step in the right direction, but it's unclear if they’ll do much to address online abuse. “I’m really grateful to Web Foundation for work that they’ve done, genuinely, to get platforms to make some efforts in this regard because there’s been very little movement over time,” Sarah Sobieraj, a professor at Tufts University and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, told Ars.…

At the UN Generation Equality Forum in Paris on Thursday Twitter, TikTok, Google, and Facebook committed to tackling online abuse and improving safety for women on their platforms. The pledge came following consultations with the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF) over the past year, aimed at examining online gender-based violence and abuse. The WWWF said the consultations showed women want more control over who could reply or comment on their social media posts and more choice around what they see online, where, and when. According to the WWWF, the companies have pledged to “build better ways for women to curate their safety online” by offering more granular settings, such as who can see, share, or comment on posts; more simple and accessible language; easier navigation and access to safety tools, and by “reducing the burden on women by proactively reducing the amount of abuse they see.” The way that last part is worded is a bit frustrating; it addresses the aftermath or the location of abuse, but not the person / people committing the abuse. And just because the women aren’t seeing the abuse on social media, doesn’t mean the abuse has gone away. The platforms certainly bear some responsibility…

Written By Jacob Camenker Share (Getty Images) https://images.daznservices.com/di/library/sporting_news/c/ce/dabo-swinney-010221-getty-ftr_j172vu6859vk14l6axx5si3fw.jpg?t=-1031535626&w=500&quality=80 July 1 is here and with it comes the first days of the NCAA's new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) policy. And Twitter users are wondering what that means for Dabo Swinney's future. The Clemson coach once said in a 2015 interview that he would "go do something else" if the NCAA ever professionalized the sport. “As far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me,” Swinney said, per Yahoo Sports. “I’ll go do something else because there’s enough entitlement in this world as there is.”MORE: Where does Dabo Swinney rank among FBS' 130 coaches?It's not the only time Swinney has said something like that. In a 2019 interview, he said he may go to the pros if the NCAA decides to "professionalize college athletics.""Who knows? They may do away with college football in three years. There may be no college football. They may want to professionalize college athletics. Well, then, maybe I'll go to the pros. If I'm going to coach pro football, I might as well do that," Swinney said, per ESPN. "I may get a terrible president or a terrible AD one day. I don't know. I have no idea what's…

June 30, 2021 | 1:15pm Enlarge Image JJ Watt recently reposted an old Twitter exchange he had with Kealia Ohai. Getty Images Long before JJ Watt and Kealia Ohai tied the knot in 2020, the two were simply chummy on Twitter. On Tuesday, the Arizona Cardinals defensive end reposted a 2014 exchange with Ohai, which took place after the Houston Dash selected the soccer star second overall in the NWSL College Draft in January of that year. “Welcome to Houston @KealiaOhai! Great start for the new Dash franchise #TeamHouston,” Watt tweeted, calling out his then-NFL city. Ohai later responded to Watt, stating she was “excited to play in one of the best cities in the world.” Watt, 32, went on to thank a Twitter follower Tuesday for bringing the brief conversation with Ohai, 29, to his attention. “Thanks for pointing this out @lllaciminos,” Watt tweeted. “Turned out to be a great start in many ways, eh @KealiaOhai?” Watt, who played for the Houston Texans from 2011 to 2021, was first linked to Ohai in 2016. Three years later, the couple got engaged during a sunset dinner. Watt later flew Ohai’s loved ones to Houston to celebrate the engagement. Kealia Ohai…

Twitter isn’t the biggest social network out there: Both Facebook and Instagram are significantly bigger, and Snapchat also has surpassed Twitter’s daily user base. But two of Twitter’s top execs focused on the entertainment industry, Sarah Rosen and Lara Cohen, say they’re looking to deliver on quality of engagement for their partners, not just quantity of followers. On this week’s episode of Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast, Rosen and Cohen broke down how the company teams up with talent and media companies to maximize reach and is regularly developing new tools to connect with fans. Social media has grown far more crowded in the last few years, said Rosen, head of U.S. entertainment and news partnerships for Twitter. Compared with other platforms, she said, “We are the place for realness — and that’s what resonates with users… and people actually read on Twitter, so your words and your tweets matter.” Her group works with TV networks, music companies, publishers and other media; Rosen called out MTV and Bravo as great examples of partners that are “true to their voice.” “We’ve never been the biggest platform. We haven’t been the newest,” Rosen said. “So we’ve always set out to be the best…

by: Fareeha Rehman Posted: Jun 29, 2021 / 10:17 AM PDT / Updated: Jun 29, 2021 / 10:17 AM PDT FILE (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Sorry, messy typers. Twitter probably won’t add an edit button. Tweets are all about throwing some brief thoughts out into the internet void. The lucky Twitter user will go viral. The unlucky Twitter user will go viral with a major typo in their tweet. Any user scrolling the social media app has likely seen the inevitable second tweet in a viral Twitter thread, correcting a typo. Because sometimes, the tweet is too popular to delete and there’s no edit button. you don't need an edit button, you just need to forgive yourself— Twitter (@Twitter) June 29, 2021 Twitter advises that people who need edits just “need to forgive” themselves instead. Or, just “embrace the typos.” If neither of those things is possible, and you have an extra few dollars a month, you could opt to pay for Twitter’s new service, called Twitter Blue. (Currently only available to Canada and Australia). Anyone who is subscribed will get the closest thing possible to an edit button: Undo Tweet. This function lets subscribers preview…

The registration of the cases came as the social media giant is said to have lost immunity from criminal proceedingsAjith Athrady, Shemin Joy, DHNS , New Delhi, Jun 29 2021, 20:27 istupdated: Jun 29 2021, 20:46 istTwitter is facing further trouble with law enforcement agencies in the country as police in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi registered cases against it for distorting the Indian map and for the availability of child pornography material on the micro-blogging site, and the Madhya Pradesh government directing its officials to take action.The registration of the cases came as the social media giant is said to have lost immunity from criminal proceedings after the appointment of a US-based grievance officer following the resignation of one based in India in violation of the new Information Technology Rules.Uttar Pradesh Police registered the case for distortion of Indian map in Bulandshahr, while Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra directed the state police chief Vivek Johri to register a case.Acting on a complaint by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Delhi Police's Cyber Cell registered a case under POCSO Act and IT Act against Twitter citing availability of links and material pertaining child exploitation. The case is against Twitter Inc and…