• Facebook has updated its rules to tackle posts containing depictions of “blackface” and common anti-Semitic stereotypes.
• Its Community Standards now explicitly state such content should be removed if used to target or mock people, after the company said it had consulted more than 60 outside experts before making the move.
• Zubaida Haque, interim director of the Runnymede Trust race-equality think tank said “We welcome Facebook’s decision, but I’m not entirely convinced these steps are part of a robust strategy to proactively deal with this hatred as opposed to it being a crisis-led sort of thing.”

• Facebook will now provide users with a new notification screen when sharing or viewing articles about COVID-19, which will provide context, information on sources, and when it was first shared. 
• This is Facebook’s latest attempt to halt the spread of misinformation regarding COVID-19, after widespread criticism for not doing enough. 
• The goal, Facebook says, is to “help people understand the recency and source of the content before they share it” and to direct “people to our COVID-19 Information Center to ensure people have access to credible information about COVID-19 from global health authorities.”

• England’s revamped coronavirus contact-tracing app is set to begin public trials on Thursday.
• The software will be based on Apple and Google’s privacy-centric method of one smartphone detecting another, after fierce backlash for the initially proposed method which sacrificed user’s privacy. 
• The idea behind the app is to use people’s phones to log when they have been close to another person for so long, that there is a high risk of contagion. 

• The Vice Principal at one of the UK’s most prestigious ballet schools has resigned after an ITV News investigation revealed allegations he had been grooming his teenage students for sex.
• Jonathan Barton, who worked at Ballet West Scotland in Argyll, has been accused of abusing his position to sleep with 16 year-old pupils at the £9,000 a year boarding school his family runs in Taynuilt.
• The investigation heard from more than 60 women – former students, staff and parents – who gave accounts of the suspect’s inappropriate behaviour from 2004 until 2018.
• Ballet West announced Johnathon Barton had resigned from his post and an external independent inquiry would be carried out. 

• 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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