This is the screenshot of the twitter accusation.
This is an interesting map of the use of the twitter hash tag #occupywallstreet via trendsmap.
According to reports on CNN and other sites there are at least a thousand people a couple of hundred camping out on Wall Street this morning. (Updated at 10:04 AM 17 September 2011 – reports are conflicting about how many people are there, using reports from people on the ground as to the crowd size).
What is interesting to me is that regardless of the idea of a trending topic is that the idea of twitter censoring anything is of deep interest to anyone who follows breaking events on Twitter. If Twitter becomes a less reliable source for breaking information, people will go elsewhere. The other interesting part is that protesters have broken into a number of other hashtags in an attempt to get around what they think is censorship at Twitter.
Does Twitter practice censorship? If anyone truly knows, leave a comment here with good examples of what the practice looks like. If Twitter is no longer reliable for coordinating protests, then this will be an issue worldwide because Twitter has become one of the most important ways of coordinating protests, and providing breaking information about protests on a global scale. It would be a shame to see that suddenly become not reliable.
Related articles
- Twitter #occupywallstreet movement aims to mimic Iran – CNN (cnn.com)
- Should Twitter Censor? (businessethicsblog.com)
(Cross-posted @ Techwag)
Dear Dan, I’ve also noticed some strange behavior: I have spoken here, in italian (I hope this is not a problem):
The dark side of Twitter and Trending topics on Twitter that they were not
[...] Morril di ClouDave ha notato che l’hashtag #occupywallstreet, utilizzato in occasione della protesta contro il sistema [...]
Roberto – interesting – brought it up in google translate. What is interesting is when it is in your face like that. Not used to seeing something so obvious or blatant, but interesting all the same.
Someone does censor certain posts with hash tags. If I post anything with #gvb (this is the Amsterdam metro train service) that is not in their interest, then the post appears in my timeline, but not in a search for #gvb.
Items that are missed are:
Telling people where the roaming ticket inspectors were last seen.
Telling them that they are ripping people off by closing the ticket offices down (we can only by certain tickets from one station, when a year ago there were 8 offices).
Telling that they are not operating in the interest of the public that pay for the services.
All tweets never appeared on the search. Only my time line.
none1 – it is interesting isn’t it, Not sure what to make of it, but after the occupy wall street hashtag system was censored on twitter, one has to wonder the value of twitter as a tool. Although it looks like Vibe for Apple products seems to be an alternative. Just all depends on how they store and control information on the back end.