Twitter is censoring the discussion of #Wikileaks

http://bubbloy.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/twitter-is-censoring-the-discussion-of-wikileaks/


Twitter is censoring the discussion of #Wikileaks

Twitter, the very popular 140 character social networking site, has a feature called “Trends” and is supposed to capture what the most popular topics of discussion are, at any given time. When people “Tweet” about a given topic, they can insert what is called a hash tag into their Tweet. For example, if I wanted to Tweet about Richard Feynman, and I wanted other people interested in Richard Feynman to be able to find it, I could put something like “#Feynman” within my post. Twitter would then automatically categorize this post under “Feynman” and voila, people can search for it on Twitter. This is how “Trends” are calculated. If say, within a given time span of perhaps 10 minutes, a million people put the tag #Christmas into their tweets, and this would be a very popular Twitter topic and should make it into the “Trends” list. Simple enough.

Today, as I was scouring the web for everything I could find about the censoring of Wikileaks and Julian Assange’s legal status I had a growing feeling of unease that Twitter was actively censoring the discussion of Wikileaks. New Tweets filed under the tag #Wikileaks were popping up at an astounding pace. If I left the page alone for literally 30 seconds, 40 new Tweets tagged as #Wikileaks would be there when I returned. It just seemed like #Wikileaks would be one of the most popular topics and therefore be reported as a “Trend”, but I really had no way to quantify this.

But then I found an excellent applet hosted by trendistic.com. It allows one to type in whatever hash tag terms they like and it will then compile a graph of how popular that hash tag term was over the course of whatever time period you select. In theory, since #Wikileaks is not a “Trend” as recognized by Twitter, every single term that Twitter lists as a Trend should outperform #Wikileaks. However, this simply is not the case. My web programming skills are not so good as my other talents, so I’ve yet to program this in the dynamically updating form that I envision, but here goes:

http://bubbloy.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/twitter-is-censoring-the-discussion-of-wikileaks/

Is that your own research? It would seem a major news source would be interested in that....

No it is not mine..
Our Admin is considering  a  Chit Chat for some reason .  :-)  
it was publish on el pais newspaper on same day

It is on news now ..Wiki War: Is Twitter Next On Hacker Hitlist?

Wiki War: Is Twitter Next On Hacker Hitlist

According to twitter http://blog.twitter.com/2010/12/to-trend-or-not-to-trend.html it's because their algorythm for "trending topics" includes a comparison between how much something was discussed yesterday (or last week or last month) and now. If 100 people were discussing wikileaks yesterday and 100 people today, it'll rank bellow something that 10 people were discussing yesterday and 40 people are talking about today.  It sounds like people wanting to get topics to trend would do well to change their hashtags frequently.

Twitter bears keeping an eye on....

But you know from the standpoints of these companies....I can understand to a point (tho I am no longer using Paypal, Ebay or Amazon). What seems very sinister is the pressure being exerted on them by those in government. A US Senator has no authority over enforcement, he can pass a new law, but if he/she is contacting companies and exerting any sort of pressure, then he/she is trampling on the concept of the separation of powers.

The layers of irony are twisting and turning in on themselves like some mad string theory.

Very strange..

I don't know why  the hackers that are defend wikileaks , and respond to critics with hacking are being seen as heroes- Anyone who hacks into my bank, credit card or my Facebook account, or my Paypal or Ebay account is a criminal and should be prosecuted.

 But I think people should be free to dicuss any issue-The idea that there mere discussion of the topic can be banned is a dangerous sliope. What's next- banning books?


 I draw the line at hacking though..

They're not hacking your personal information. They are sending denial of service attacks to websites so they are temporarily slowed down or taken offline. The two things are completely different, but there are a lot of people happy to exploit your ignorance on that difference to make people turn against Wikileaks.

They're not hacking your personal information. They are sending denial of service attacks to websites so they are temporarily slowed down or taken offline. The two things are completely different, but there are a lot of people happy to exploit your ignorance on that difference to make people turn against Wikileaks.

Criminal behavior is criminal behavior.
Hackers are not heroes.

May be it is time to understand  Denial-of-service attack
newcomer link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack [nonactive]

Rami = Bidawai, very strange indeed.

Rami = Bidawai, very strange indeed.

Lots of strange new members recently.

Also can we stop using the word "hacker", especially as DDOS is essentially just hitting F5 repeatedly 

Lots of strange new members recently.

Also can we stop using the word "hacker", especially as DDOS is essentially just hitting F5 repeatedly 

I suppose it boils down to how one defines hacker. It refuse to see them as heroes.When Facebook accounts are taken over by outside entities (which happened to me) , or Ebay or Paypal accounts are infiltrated and funds drained (which hapepned to a friend) , that seems to be hacking. There is no justification for that behavior. Identity theft and monetary theft is a crime.

THOSE THINGS ARE NOT THE SAME AS WHAT IS GOING ON WITH WIKILEAKS. They are not identity thieves, they are not hackers. Denial of service attacks WHICH ARE NOT HACKING were used by people against Wikileaks as well as by people who support Wikileaks. There is no evidence that Wikileaks itself has done any hacking. Somebody taking over your Facebook or eBay account is not the same as what is going on here.