Ask.fm unveils safety policy changes

19 August 2013 Last updated at 10:44 ET By Pia Gadkari Technology reporter

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David Smith, father of Hannah, on Ask.fm's new safety policies: "The government needs to bring in new regulations."

Social networking site Ask.fm has unveiled changes to make its site safer after recent online bullying cases.

It said it would view all reports within 24 hours, make the report button more visible, and include bullying and harassment as a category for a report.

It said some of the changes would be live on the site by September.

The father of Hannah Smith, 14, who is believed to have killed herself at home in Leicestershire after she was bullied on the site, welcomed the changes.

"I think it's too late, but it's not too little," Dave Smith said in an interview with the BBC. "They're actually taking a step forward and they're making things safer for children on the internet."

'New laws needed'

Mr Smith said Ask.fm did not need to be shut down, since it had shown it was ready to make its site safer. But he called on the government to do more.

Continue reading the main story

It has become a cliche to say that the internet is ungovernable - but the fact that Ask.fm has felt obliged to respond to British anger over bullying on the site shows that is not the whole story.

Any site that attracts a global audience of young people quickly finds that it cannot wash its hands when things go wrong.

Monday's announcement has been welcomed by child safety experts.

But even though there will now be incentives for Ask.fm users to be a little less anonymous, it is that ability to say what you want without identifying yourself which is both the appeal and the danger of sites of like this.

There is pressure now to make it illegal to offer this kind of service to children without making sure they are who they say they are.

But the argument over anonymity - which offers security to dissidents in danger as well as a cloak for bullies - will continue to rage.

Even if Ask.fm loses its appeal to young people, other sites with even less security will take its place.

"The government needs to bring in new regulations so that people are safe on the internet," he said.

"We also need to bring new laws in so that if somebody is abusive on the internet they can actually get prosecuted for it."

Hannah was found hanged at her home in Lutterworth on 2 August.

Ask.fm said it would:

• Hire more staff, including a safety officer, to moderate comments on the site
• Create a "bullying/harassment" category for reported comments, alongside "spam or scam", "hate speech", "violence" and "pornographic content"
• Raise the visibility of a function to opt out of receiving anonymous questions
• Limit the number of features unregistered users were able to access, and require an email address upon sign-up for registered users

John Carr, secretary of the UK's Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, who is an adviser to the UK government on child safety, said: "The number of moderators they employ will be crucial as well as how fast they can be trained.

"But the measures they've announced definitely show they got the message and are moving in the right direction."

Report abuse

The UK Safer Internet Centre, which promotes the safe use of technology, said it was "delighted" by Ask.fm's proposed changes, and added the increased visibility of the "anonymous opt-out option" was an important development.

"We strongly advise users, especially children, to switch off anonymous questions, and to report any abuse they see on the site," the group said.

Continue reading the main story

Clearly these changes are positive steps in the right direction"

End Quote Claire Perry MP

"We will continue to offer advice to Ask.fm about their processes, to ensure users have a positive and safe experience."

In July, 1.4 million people in the UK visited Ask.fm, according to the latest figures from internet research firm Comscore.

After her death, Hannah's father said that he had found bullying posts on his daughter's Ask.fm page from people telling her to die.

Latvia-based Ask.fm ordered a law firm to conduct an audit of the site and its safety features in the wake of Hannah's death.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has called for people to boycott websites that fail to tackle online abuse.

Claire Perry MP, an adviser to the prime minister on child safety issues, said she was hopeful the "responsible" changes would "prevent any more tragic consequences".

"While I am concerned as to the length of time it will take for these crucial measures to be implemented, clearly these changes are positive steps in the right direction," she said.

Companies including Specsavers, Vodafone, Laura Ashley and the charity Save the Children withdrew their advertising from Ask.fm after Hannah died.

It has also emerged that another teenager, 17-year-old Daniel Perry, had been urged to kill himself by anonymous users on Ask.fm in the months leading up to his death.

Daniel is also believed to have been blackmailed on the internet and faced threats that images and videos on his laptop would be made public if he did not send money to an account.

A recent report from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) indicated that online harassment or abuse was experienced by almost one in five children who used social networking sites.

It suggested the most common sort of bad experience was bullying and trolling, but that children also received unwanted sexual messages, cyber-stalking and felt under pressure to look a certain way.

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Facebook eyes mobile payment feature

16 August 2013 Last updated at 01:46 ET

Facebook, the world's largest social networking company, is planning to test a new mobile payment feature.

It will use payment details added by users to their Facebook account to automatically fill in forms when they make purchases on mobile applications.

Various companies have been looking to tap into mobile payments markets.

However, Facebook said the feature would not involve moving the payment processing away from an app's current service provider.

"This product is simply to test how we can help our app partners provide a simpler commerce experience," Facebook's spokeswoman Tera Randall said in a statement.

She added that the firm has a "great relationship" with PayPal, one of the biggest processors of online payments.

'Fantastic move'

Continue reading the main story

This feature will help them demonstrate to the advertisers the effectiveness of its platform in driving revenue"

End Quote Manoj Menon Frost & Sullivan

Facebook has more than a billion members and half log in daily. Its popularity has seen it attract advertisers keen to tap into the potential consumer pool.

According to the its latest earnings report, it generated advertising revenue of $1.6bn (£1bn) in the April to June quarter this year.

Analysts said that if the site does eventually launch the payment feature it will help it track how many of its users actually purchased items from partner applications.

"Facebook does not want to remain just a platform for brand promotion and lead generation, but it wants to become the place where ecommerce deals actually happen," Manoj Menon, managing director of consulting firm Frost & Sullivan told the BBC.

"This feature will help them demonstrate to the advertisers the effectiveness of its platform in driving revenue. It is a fantastic move by Facebook," he added.

However, some analysts were sceptical if users would trust a social networking site with their financial information.

"Consumers want safe, seamless and convenient mobile payments and there are a growing number of competitors that consumers trust more, such as PayPal, Visa (V.me) and others,' said Denee Carrington, an analyst with Forrester Research.

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Bitter row over Windows YouTube app

16 August 2013 Last updated at 08:19 ET

A bitter row has broken out between Google and Microsoft over the Windows Phone YouTube app.

Google has blocked users from watching videos via the app, saying it violated its terms of service.

The search company had requested the app be made using HTML5 code language, but Microsoft said it was unable to.

Microsoft said the issues were "manufactured" and Google was deliberately hindering the Windows Phone platform.

'Inconsistent'

In a blog post entitled "The limits of Google's openness", Microsoft lawyer David Howard requested that Google lift the block, and outlined his company's issues with the stance.

Continue reading the main story

The roadblocks Google has set up are impossible to overcome, and they know it"

End Quote David Howard Microsoft lawyer

"Google's objections to our app are not only inconsistent with Google's own commitment of openness, but also involve requirements for a Windows Phone app that it doesn't impose on its own platform or Apple's."

He added: "It seems to us that Google's reasons for blocking our app are manufactured so that we can't give our users the same experience Android and iPhone users are getting.

"The roadblocks Google has set up are impossible to overcome, and they know it."

In a statement, Google defended its actions: "Unfortunately, Microsoft has not made the browser upgrades necessary to enable a fully featured YouTube experience, and has instead re-released a YouTube app that violates our terms of service. It has been disabled.

'Odd request'

"We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines."

The Windows Phone platform is, according to some metrics, the third most popular mobile operating system in use worldwide.

However, it lags well behind Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

As a result, there are considerably fewer apps available for Windows Phone. To address this, Microsoft is investing its own resources to bring some key services to its platform.

In May, Microsoft's first attempt at creating a YouTube app was blocked after Google complained it failed to display ads correctly.

The companies agreed to work together to devise a new version, but Google insisted it was created using HTML5, an open web coding standard, rather than code specific to the Windows Phone platform.

Mr Howard said this was an "odd request", and one that was unfair to Microsoft.

'Significant resources'

"Neither YouTube's iPhone app nor its Android app are built on HTML5," he wrote.

"Nevertheless, we dedicated significant engineering resources to examine the possibility.

"At the end of the day, experts from both companies recognised that building a YouTube app based on HTML5 would be technically difficult and time-consuming, which is why we assume YouTube has not yet made the conversion for its iPhone and Android apps."

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Death sparks cyber-blackmail probe

16 August 2013 Last updated at 08:20 ET

Police in Fife are investigating claims that a 17-year-old boy killed himself because he was being blackmailed on the internet.

It is thought Daniel Perry had become involved in a scam where victims are befriended and tricked into making explicit webcam recordings.

These are then used for blackmail.

It has also emerged that the teenager had previously been urged to kill himself by anonymous users on the social media website ask.fm.

The site has been linked to the deaths of other youngsters.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

"Knowing him as I do, he has felt embarrassed, horrified and has thought he's let everybody down."

End Quote Daniel Perry's mother

Hannah Smith, 14, was found hanged at her home in Lutterworth, Leicestershire, on 2 August, and is thought to have killed herself after being bullied on the website.

Her funeral is due to be held in her home town on Friday.

Several messages were sent to Daniel on the site about three months before he took his own life on 15 July.

One of the messages read "kill yourself mate" while another said "you need to let a blade meet your throat".

Other users involved in the conversations at the time condemned the messages and pledged their support to the teenager.

Daniel, an apprentice mechanic from Dunfermline, died after falling from the Forth Road Bridge.

It appears he had been having online conversations with someone whom he believed to be a girl around his own age.

The day he died the teenager had read a message on his laptop saying images or video would be made public and shared with his friends and family if he didn't pay money into an account.

He was warned that he would be better off dead if he did not transfer the cash.

Less than an hour after replying to the message he had killed himself.

Daniel's mother said she wanted to raise awareness of the dangers of internet blackmail.

She told the Dunfermline Press: "He was not the type of person who let things get him down.

"He was a happy laddie, not depressed and the last type of person you would think would take their life.

"Knowing him as I do, he has felt embarrassed, horrified and has thought he's let everybody down.

"We're a very close family and I just wished he had come to me and said something."

Internet extortion

She added: "When I feel strong enough I want to do something to stop this happening to other young people.

"He was coming up to his 18th birthday so it's not as if we could have been checking what he was doing on his laptop.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

Threatening to show off embarrassing or incriminating images of someone has long been a simple staple of blackmail or extortion attempts.

But in the online world it has been taken it to another level.

They are often blatant and obvious attacks: the user quickly becomes well aware of what is going on, but by that point it is usually too late.

In this tragic case, it is believed that Daniel Perry was encouraged into making explicit images to send to what he thought was a young woman his age.

"People get approached by someone to have a friendly conversation," explains security expert Graham Cluley.

"A romance blossoms, and before you know it, the 'girl' on the other end is encouraging you to take your clothes off - what you don't know is that you're being filmed."

From here, the extortionists will ask for payment, threatening to make the pictures public if their demands are not met.

In Singapore, the problem lead to the government making warnings against the dangers. One scam was recreated on a national television programme.

The NSPCC has said this is the first time it had come across a case like this, but Mr Cluley says the problem is more widespread.

"Because of the nature of it, it's not being reported to the authorities," he said.

"Young people need to know they're not alone, and that is isn't the end of the world."

"However, he wasn't doing anything wrong just what anyone his age might do but this scam is all about exploiting young people."

Daniel attended St Columba's High School.

Head teacher Jim Mooney said he was popular with both staff and pupils.

"Staff fondly remember his cheeky smile and the banter they had with him. He enjoyed having a laugh.

"The whole school community was very saddened at Daniel's tragic death at such a young age.

"Both he and his family were remembered in our prayers when school resumed this week."

Police are urging anyone who is experiencing similar cyber-bullying to report it.

Claire Lilley, senior policy analyst at the NSPCC, told the BBC's Today programme this was the first time she had come across extortion of a young person on the internet.

"We have seen plenty of cases coming through ChildLine where children are experiencing serious cyber-bullying at the hands of their peers and also being groomed by sexual predators," she said.

"But this is the first time we have really seen extortion happening, via the internet, of a young person.

"Children and young people love the internet to learn, explore and connect with people like them all over the world.

"But it's about teaching them that not everyone is who they say they are and teaching them how to respect one another in terms of their behaviour online.

She reiterated calls for a "report button" on social media sites and said more should be done to tell young people where they could go for help.

Utterly devastating

Aileen Campbell, Scotland's minister for young people, offered her sympathies to Daniel's family and said bullying in any form was "absolutely unacceptable".

She said: "Modern technology offers great opportunities for education and communication but its misuse can be utterly devastating to those targeted and their families.

"Laws already exist to prosecute people for illegal behaviour online and our sympathies go out to the family of the teenager from West Fife."

She added: "As well as making it easier to report online abuse, we need to educate parents and other adults around internet use. People need to know where to turn for advice and who will support them if they need to take action."

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "Police Scotland treats any instances of cyber-bullying, online threats or blackmail very seriously.

"Facebook and many other social media sites have a facility where users can report content that causes them concern.

"However, threats or serious allegations made online by anyone against any individual reported to police will be thoroughly investigated.

"Anyone who is or has been experiencing such treatment should contact the police as soon as possible."

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Twitter trolls attack Gibraltar chief

16 August 2013 Last updated at 12:02 ET

Gibraltar's chief minister says he has received death threats on Twitter after criticising Spanish border controls.

Amid tensions over the UK territory, over which Spain claims sovereignty, Fabian Picardo is the second politician targeted by Spanish Twitter users.

Gibraltar MEP Julie Girling was hit by a stream of offensive messages after suggesting UK tourists boycott Spain.

The row began after Gibraltar created an artificial reef which Spain says will disrupt fishing.

Spain has tightened border controls with the British overseas territory although it denies that was done in retaliation for the reef.

The Foreign Office is lodging a formal complaint with Spain over the ensuing "unacceptable" delays at its border with Gibraltar and David Cameron has asked the EU Commission to send a monitoring team to gather evidence on them - arguing they are contrary to EU rules on free movement.

'Extreme reactions'

Mr Picardo said on Friday: "I think social media is a great thing, but it also has a very negative aspect to it, which is people can use the cloak of anonymity to insult people and to say things that reasonable human beings don't say about each other.

"I have had some extreme reactions to things I say.

Continue reading the main story

"This really gives you a sick feeling in the stomach. It's horrible."

End Quote Julie Girling Gibraltar MEP

"I have even had death threats against my family by Twitter."

Meanwhile Mrs Girling, Conservative MEP for the South-West of England and Gibraltar, says she has been "taken aback" by a torrent of offensive tweets after she urged her constituents "to consider taking their summer holidays elsewhere this year - Spain is not on our side".

In the past few days hundreds of lewd and "very offensive" messages on Twitter and via email have been sent, many in Spanish, some describing her as a "bitch" or "Nazi".

Others have suggested, in racist terms, that she try holidaying in India, suggesting she was "too ugly 2 visit Spain anyway".

The Conservative politician, who also represents the South West of England in Brussels, has found Twitter a useful way of communicating with people in her rather far flung constituencies and said she would not be put off using it.

But she said: "This really gives you a sick feeling in the stomach. It's horrible.

"Some of the language is very offensive and completely off the point. I'm trying to protect the rights of my citizens who vote for me in Gibraltar."

A number of prominent women have recently been targeted online by anonymous abusers, or so-called "trolls", including Labour MP Stella Creasy and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez.

Mrs Girling told the BBC the "really abusive" tweets were "almost all, as far as I can see, from men".

"They make some kind of sexual or personal comments about my appearance - it's like playground stuff but you don't expect to get that when you are a middle-aged woman.

"There is a misogyny in there - I just thought we had left that behind. Twitter is really exposing this, I think. There's a deep-rooted hostility to women in parts of society which is really unpleasant."

Meanwhile, drivers trying to get into Gibraltar from Spain have been facing waits of several hours. Downing Street has said legal action would be launched against Spain over the border checks.

Spain's director general for foreign affairs Ignacio Ibanez has accused the Gibraltarian authorities of failing to control smuggling.

He told the BBC this week it was up to the British government to intervene with the Gibraltarian authorities to get the artificial reef, which Spain says is in a conservation area, removed.

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Ubuntu sets crowdfund pledge record

16 August 2013 Last updated at 13:13 ET By Pia Gadkari BBC News

A crowdfunding campaign for the Ubuntu Edge smartphone has set a record for raising more money in pledges than any other such venture.

The London-based developer, Canonical, has generated $10,288,472 (about £6.6m) in pledges, passing the record set by Pebble smartwatches last year.

But with six days of its campaign left the company is far from reaching its funding goal of $32m.

Canonical would have to return all the money if it does not reach the target.

The developer had said that if its campaign on the Indiegogo crowdfunding website was successful, it would aim to deliver 40,000 handsets to qualifying backers by next May.

'Bringing the future forward'

In an interview with the BBC, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said public interest in the Ubuntu Edge smartphone was high.

"The campaign has sparked a level of interest that has surprised even us," he said, adding that it had seized the attention not only of phone enthusiasts but innovators and futurists as well as manufacturers.

He added that some large manufacturers had come "out of the woodwork" to discuss the device with him.

Continue reading the main story

They need to really start looking at more conventional forms of fundraising"

End Quote Chris Green Senior consultant, Davies Murphy Group

Last week, Bloomberg said it had made an $80,000 contribution to the campaign, explaining that the open-source initiative could benefit its clients and influence the future of mobile computing.

But Mr Shuttleworth conceded the product might be too much of a departure from the current generation of smartphones for many institutional investors, such as major telecom companies, to consider backing it now.

If the Edge managed to find enough funding, "we would have been bringing the future forward a year or two at least", Mr Shuttleworth said.

Programs on the proposed smartphone would look like standard mobile apps when the handset was being used as a standalone device.

But they would change their user interfaces to that of a desktop application when the phone was docked with a monitor, Canonical said.

In addition, the operating system could support apps written in the HTML5 web language, albeit at slower speeds.

Particularly in regions such as Asia, Mr Shuttleworth said, businesses as well as individuals expressed interest in this type of device.

'Naive' strategy

But he acknowledged that, with one week of the campaign left, there was still a long way to go to meet the funding target.

Canonical aimed to raise $32m. Indiegogo's current funding record is $1,665,380, which was raised by Scandu Scout - a scheme to build a Star Trek-style Tricorder medical scanning device.

Its rival Kickstarter's record is $10,266,845 for the Pebble smartwatch.

Other independent fundraising campaigns have attracted larger sums, such as Cloud Imperium Games, which has gathered more than $15m by soliciting contributions directly on its website. It raised more than $2m in a separate campaign on Kickstarter.

"We were mindful that tripling a record is always a big stretch and a big ask," Mr Shuttleworth said.

"Risky new technology is difficult for mainstream manufacturers," he said, adding that the campaign's funding target was "head and shoulders" above anything else.

According to Chris Green, senior consultant at the Davies Murphy Group, "$10m in crowd-sourced funding is a huge achievement, a very powerful and distinct message".

But he added that Canonical's strategy of raising all the money through a single crowdfunding campaign was "naive", and the developers chose the wrong platform for it.

"It was a smart move to go straight to buyers and say, 'Be part of the future,' " Mr Green said. "But they would have had a better chance of tapping into funding if they went for a bigger platform, just because of the sheer base.

"They need to really start looking at more conventional forms of fundraising," he added.

'Absolute bargain'

Mr Shuttleworth admitted there were lessons learned in the campaign. For example, he said he would rethink the discounted price offered to early contributors.

Backers were asked to commit $600 on the first day or $830 on the remaining days of the campaign to secure a handset, roughly double the cost of LG's Nexus 4 mobile, which supports its software.

But Mr Green said Ubuntu's pricing was an "absolute bargain", adding: "The product was sound. I would not say it is expensive."

Mr Shuttleworth said that if the campaign made significant gains in the coming days, Ubuntu would consider extending its online campaign. If it remained far from its goal, all the money would be returned to contributors.

Canonical chose to use Indiegogo's "fixed funding" campaign, under the terms of which all the money pledged must be returned if the campaign does not reach its funding goal.

The company could have selected a "flexible funding" campaign and kept most of the funds, after paying a higher percentage to Indiegogo for missing the target.

Canonical makes money by charging for support and training for Ubuntu and also plans to take a share of sales from online marketplaces offered by handset makers who adopt its software.

It is seeking to gain ground in an increasingly crowded smartphone marketplace.

Canonical's campaign will run until 21 August.

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Technical issue hits BT Sport app

17 August 2013 Last updated at 11:23 ET

Some BT Sport customers have complained of problems with the broadcaster's app for mobile devices as it aired its first live Premier League match.

Hundreds tweeted about problems, some saying they saw the message: "Sorry we are having some temporary technical issues, please try again later."

BT Sport said the issues had affected "a minority" of customers who had tried to log in once the game had started.

It said it responded quickly so most customers could watch the second half.

'Intermittent issue'

The technical problem arose during the Liverpool v Stoke City, the first game of the Premier League season, which kicked off at 12:45 BST and ended with a 1-0 victory for the home side.

The BT Sport app runs over 3G and 4G mobile networks and wi-fi connections and is available for phone and tablet devices running Apple and Android operating systems.

One Twitter user, Andrew Muirhead, posted: "BT sport app thanks for cutting out on the first game of the season!"

Another, James Bufton, said: "Unfortunately due to the failings of the BT Sport app, I couldn't witness the first goal of the PL season."

Others complained the app would work only on a wi-fi connection.

The official BT Sport Twitter account replied to some individual users, suggesting they log out and log back in again.

It tweeted: "Sorry, some customers have seen an intermittent issue with the BT Sport App. We are working to resolve this, apologies to everyone affected."

A BT spokeswoman said: "Those customers who logged in before the game have experienced no issues but a minority of customers who tried to login once the game had started may have seen an intermittent issue and an error message.

"Our team responded quickly and were able to make a difference so most of the customers who were experiencing problems were able to enjoy the remainder of the second half."

The spokeswoman said the new broadcaster had been following feedback closely on social media for its first Premier League game and was "really pleased so many customers have enjoyed the coverage".

Telecoms giant BT launched its own UK sports channels earlier this month.

It has spent £738m over three years for the rights to 38 live Premier League matches a season, while Sky has paid £2.3bn for 116 matches a season. Other coverage includes rugby union and tennis.

The channel, which is broadcasting from new studio facilities at the Olympic Park in Stratford, has taken on some big-name presenters including Jake Humphrey and Clare Balding.

Humphrey, who previously fronted the BBC's Formula One coverage, was joined on the Premier League launch programme by pundits Steve McManaman and Owen Hargreaves, the former England players.

This week BT Sport announced viewer numbers had tripled to three million as a deal with Virgin Media made its channels available to the cable operator's subscribers.

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Facebook founder's 'wall' hacked

19 August 2013 Last updated at 07:08 ET By Joe Miller BBC News

A Palestinian programmer has highlighted a flaw in Facebook's security system by posting a message on Mark Zuckerberg's private page.

Khalil Shreateh used a vulnerability he discovered to hack the account of the Facebook founder and raise the alarm.

Mr Shreateh said he had tried to use Facebook's White Hat scheme, which offers a monetary reward for reporting vulnerabilities, but had been ignored.

Facebook said it had fixed the fault but would not be paying Mr Shreateh.

Mr Shreateh found a security breach that allowed Facebook users to post messages on the private "walls" of people who had not approved them as "friends", overriding the site's privacy features.

'Not a bug'

He wrote to Facebook's White Hat team to warn them of the glitch, providing basic details of his discovery.

After a short exchange with the team, Mr Shreateh received an email saying: "I am sorry this is not a bug".

Following this rebuttal, Mr Shreateh exploited the bug to post a message on Mr Zuckerberg's page.

In the post, Mr Shreateh, whose first language is Arabic, said he was "sorry for breaking your privacy and post to your wall" but that he had "no other choice" after being ignored by Facebook's security team.

An engineer on Facebook's security team, Matt Jones, posted a public explanation saying that although Mr Shreateh's original email should have been followed up, the way he had reported the bug had violated the site's "responsible disclosure policy".

He added that as Mr Shreateh had highlighted the bug "using the accounts of real people without their permission", he would not qualify for a payout.

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Minecraft maker shelves 0x10c game

19 August 2013 Last updated at 07:08 ET

Developer Markus "Notch" Persson, who created the hit online video game Minecraft, says he has shelved plans for a follow-up.

The new project was provisionally titled 0x10c. It was to be a space-themed game, set in the distant future.

Mojang, the company behind Minecraft, recorded £57m profit in 2012 and had promoted 0x10c during its development.

Mr Persson blamed both the high levels of interest in 0x10c and code copiers for his decision to stop working on it.

"I was streaming code and someone copied all the code and made their own version of it," he said of the new game during a live web stream.

"That was kind of the start of the decline of 0x10c. I realised the community was more powerful than I had the energy for."

There had been a great deal of interest in the game, which was to feature an in-game computer which could be programmed and even infected with viruses by players - not least because of the success of Minecraft.

Mr Persson has previously said he found it "weird" that he had made so much money out of the game, and told his web stream audience that he would no longer work on such high profile projects.

"I'm just going to make small games that hopefully you guys like instead of trying to do something that was going to have big mass appeal."

At the time of writing a blog documenting the development of 0x10c had not been updated since November 2012.

Earlier on in the broadcast Mr Persson appeared to blame the excitement surrounding the game for its demise before completion.

"I stopped developing 0x10c because everyone started caring about it before it was even done," he said.

"I just want to make small games and talk to other game developers about them. Forget all the hype."

He has today tweeted about the impact of his reputation as a high profile game developer on his work.

"It was much easier to have grand plans when nobody knew who I was," he wrote.

"The gaming world doesn't need more under delivering visionaries."

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Row after journalist's partner held

19 August 2013 Last updated at 11:52 ET

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Glenn Greenwald (right): "They spent the entire day asking about the reporting I was doing and other Guardian journalists were doing on the NSA stories"

Pressure is mounting on police to justify the detention of a journalist's partner under terror laws.

Senior politicians and an independent reviewer have said police must explain why David Miranda was detained for nine hours at Heathrow Airport.

Mr Miranda's partner is a journalist who published documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Police have not said why Mr Miranda was held, but he said he was kept in a room and quizzed by "six agents".

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said police must explain why terrorism powers were used.

Brazil has complained that his detention was "without justification".

The Home Office said it was for the police to decide when to use its powers to stop people.

Questions 'about everything'

Mr Miranda, 28, was held at Heathrow on Sunday, on his way from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.

"I remained in a room, there were six different agents coming and going, talking to me," Mr Miranda said.

"They asked questions about my entire life, about everything.

"They took my computer, video game, mobile phone, my memory cards, everything."

In Germany, Mr Miranda had been staying with US film-maker Laura Poitras, who has also been working on the Snowden files with Mr Greenwald and the Guardian, according to the newspaper.

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His flights were being paid for by the Guardian. A spokesperson said he was not an employee of the newspaper but "often assists" Mr Greenwald with his work.

Mr Miranda was held under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This allows police to hold someone at an airport for up to nine hours for questioning about whether they have been involved with acts of terrorism.

Anyone detained must "give the examining officer any information in his possession which the officer requests". Any property seized must be returned after seven days.

The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC, said it was very unusual for a passenger to be held for the full nine hours under this schedule and he wanted to "get to the bottom" of what had happened.

He said he had asked the Home Office and Scotland Yard for a full briefing.

'Bullying'

The Guardian said it was "dismayed" that Mr Miranda had been detained and was "urgently seeking clarification from the British authorities" as to why it had happened.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed a 28-year-old man was held from 08:05 BST until 17:00 BST on Sunday under schedule 7 and was not arrested.

According to the Home Office, more than 97% of examinations under schedule 7 last less than an hour.

Mr Greenwald said the British authorities' actions in holding Mr Miranda amounted to "bullying" and linked it to his writing about Edward Snowden's revelations concerning the US National Security Agency (NSA).

He said it was "clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and (UK intelligence agency) GCHQ".

He told the BBC: "They never asked him about a single question at all about terrorism or anything relating to a terrorist organisation.

"They spent the entire day asking about the reporting I was doing and other Guardian journalists were doing on the NSA stories."

He said he would respond by writing reports "much more aggressively than before" and would publish "many more documents".

"I have lots of documents about the way the secret services operate in England. Now my focus will be there as well," he added.

"I think they are going to regret what they did."

'Extraordinary'

Mr Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, leaked details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence services.

According to the Guardian, Mr Snowden passed "thousands of files" to Mr Greenwald, who has written a series of stories about surveillance by US and UK authorities.

The NSA has broken privacy rules and overstepped its legal authority thousands of times in the past two years, according to the leaked documents.

Mr Vaz told the BBC police must "of course" question people if they have "concerns" about what they are doing in the UK.

"What is extraordinary is they knew he was the partner [of Mr Greenwald] and therefore it is clear not only people who are directly involved are being sought but also the partners of those involved," he said.

"Bearing in mind it is a new use of terrorism legislation to detain someone in these circumstances... I will write to the police to ask for the justification of the use of terrorism legislation - they may have a perfectly reasonable explanation."

He later said: "Those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind."

Ms Cooper said: "Any suggestion that terror powers are being misused must be investigated and clarified urgently.

"The public support for these powers must not be endangered by a perception of misuse."

In a statement, the Liberal Democrats said police should use schedule 7 powers "proportionately and for good reason".

The Brazilian government issued an official statement soon after the release of Mr Miranda.

The foreign ministry document said there was no justification for detaining an "individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that [anti-terror] legislation".

Journalism 'not terrorism'

It also said Brazil expects incidents "such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today" not to be repeated.

Journalists' groups have accused authorities of misusing terrorism laws.

Bob Satchwell, of the Society of Editors, said the incident was "another example of the dangerous tendency" for authorities to "assume that journalists are bad when in fact they play an important part in any democracy."

He added: "Journalism may be embarrassing and annoying for governments but it is not terrorism."

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, added: "Journalists no longer feel safe exchanging even encrypted messages by email and now it seems they are not safe when they resort to face-to-face meetings."

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