Is Twitter Censoring Wikileaks Trends? 191
comforteagle writes "There are suspicions coming to the surface this morning that Twitter may be censoring WikiLeaks-related tweets from forming a trending topic. Why is still unclear at this point, as during Iranian protests a short while ago Twitter appeared to be in the fray of helping to spread the word. As of this morning it appears that Twitter may have some explaining to do. One of Twitter's engineers has chimed in over the weekend, but some aren't convinced."
Not the first time (Score:5, Informative)
I can't recall what it was, but Scienceblogs was atwitter with claims that Twitter was censoring a science/religion/something event that was being discussed. It turns out that (shock) people just weren't talking about it as incredibly frequently as they had been when it started trending.
Re:Friday Was the Hot Day (Score:5, Informative)
The piece specifically talks about comparisons. All of the other idiotic nonsense that did trend didn't compare in level to #wikileaks. The direct link to one of the vastly more interesting ones, imo:
http://bubbloy.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/twitter-is-censoring-the-discussion-of-wikileaks/ [wordpress.com]
No they aren't (Score:5, Informative)
Blame Justin Bieber
What happened was... all the JB fans were skewing the trending topics by tweeting about him all the time.
So twitter changed TTs from being a measure of amount to a measure of growth (or derivative)
And I think wikileaks grew slower, hence no TTs.
Wikileaks supporters, beware of the vigilantes. (Score:2, Informative)
What is a target of opportunity?
The website describes it:
"This website is devoted to fighting Terrorism and forced integration of Marxist oriented ideals and values into the American mainstream.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/ [targetofopportunity.com]
It's about to get really dirty.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america [nowpublic.com]
Re:Do you really have to ask "why?" (Score:4, Informative)
Large scale conspiracies and secrets can be held for fairly lengthy durations. Decades even, when the information is worth keeping secret. Look at projects like the F-117. Likewise, there are some aviation projects which have been ongoing for decades and all we know is, to paraphrase, by even today's standards, they seem pure science fiction.
Conspiracies happen all the time. But, contrary to common misconception, they need not be nefarious. Some times they are a birthday party. Other times, they save lives and no one ever knows; or at least not for many decades.
But, as you rightly point out, there are costs associated with conspiracies. IMOHO, you left out one variable. What is the benefit of a conspiracy in comparison to maintaining it. By that measure alone, the conspiracy cries here are just dumb. Spending political capital on issues which largely don't matter to the public would be as dumb as believing there is a conspiracy here.
Who knows, there may be a conspiracy at work here. But at the end of the day, there is absolutely zero reason to believe there is a conspiracy which means, for now, we're operating in the realm of the truly paranoid.
main problem (Score:4, Informative)
Usernames can't be trending topics, and a ton of people use the tag #wikileaks.
Assange's personal bank account frozen (Score:5, Informative)
Swiss bank freezes Julian Assange's (personal) account [bbc.co.uk]