This week, my friend Gilad Lotan of SocialFlow wrote an excellent blog post explaining how trending topics really work, in an attempt it seems, to put rumors of censorship to rest. Twitter has been dealing with these rumors for quite some time, and last December publicly explained that Trending Topics are about velocity, not volume, […]
First, a note: I’m no expert on either of the two countries that are a focus of this piece, nor do I intend to be comprehensive in my analysis. I know a bit more about Syria than I do about Bahrain, having studied its history closely and traveled there, but nonetheless, I intend purely to […]
I just published a post over on Global Voices with the same headline, specifically quoting Syrian opposition and their supporters, who have been attempting to trend the #RamadanMassacre hashtag today. In looking for tweets using the hashtag, I came across one from Andy Carvin that got me thinking. Can Twitter prevent a massacre? I know […]