Twitter Denies Blocking #wikileaks From Trending

by Ray Rahman | 12:00 pm, December 9th, 2010

» 6 comments

Pretty much everybody has something to say about WikiLeaks. And for those who like to say those things using only 140 characters, it’s been a bit of a mystery as to why #wikileaks hasn’t become a trending topic. But thanks to swirling rumors on the Internet, that mystery turned into a full-fledged conspiracy theory. This prompted Twitter to use its blog to explain why #wikileaks isn’t trending, despite being one of Twitter’s most-discussed topics.

The post—which uses up a relatively massive 1,974 characters, headline excluded—claims that Twitter has “absolutely not” blocked #wikileaks, #cablegate, or any other Julain Assange-tinged topic from becoming a certified Trend. We’re then given a clearer definition of what even constitutes a Trend:

Twitter Trends are automatically generated by an algorithm that attempts to identify topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously. The Trends list is designed to help people discover the ‘most breaking’ breaking news from across the world, in real-time. The Trends list captures the hottest emerging topics, not just what’s most popular. Put another way, Twitter favors novelty over popularity (as BuzzFeed noted in a great article & infographic earlier this week).

So basically, #wikileaks has been widely discussed for too long to suddenly become a proper Trend, or, in Twitter’s words, “the velocity of conversation isn’t increasing quickly enough, relative to the baseline level of conversation happening on an average day.”

Yet some aren’t convinced. Mashable whipped out a chart that shows how the topic has “spiked significantly” since Thanksgiving. CNET, on the other hand, is a little more trusting of Twitter, and thinks that maybe the platform simply isn’t “the domain of media and politics junkies that it was a few years ago.”

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who knows?

Julian Assange, twitter, Twitter trending topics, Wikileaks

Magister

I don’t know about their justification and I hope this won’t be taken the wrong way, but one thing we know for sure is that neither Mediaite nor the Twitter blog coded #wikileaks as a link.
Magister

PS) What ever happened to that Twitter widget that used to occasionally appear on the front page? Sure, it was buggy, but this seems like one of the times an embed may be appropriate.
Kitsune

Time for /b/ to DDoS Attack Twitter, it looks like :P
Socialist

Good job Twitter. I am not that big fan of a free market, but In my opinion, any companies that love the free market should keep the market free. I mean these days companies will do anything for money, even bow to the evil governments. Last time i saw a company that actually stood up to uphold freedom of speech (although wasn’t successful) was google..
iris

And paypal released the funds, obviously they have been taken down a notch. GTK there can be some control on these corrupt corporations
Thanks Anon
Magister

@Socialist: I’m still somewhat disappointed that considering all the “don’t be evil” hype and how much faith the fanboys put into it, Google didn’t step up to become Wikileaks host.