{"id":824,"date":"2010-05-31T12:14:54","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T09:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/2010\/twitter-actively-censoring-flotilla\/"},"modified":"2013-08-26T18:19:06","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T23:19:06","slug":"twitter-actively-censoring-flotilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/twitter-actively-censoring-flotilla\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Twitter Actively Censoring Human Rights Activists in Palestine?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Quick background: earlier today, IDF soldiers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/news\/diplomacy-defense\/israel-navy-commandos-gaza-flotilla-activists-tried-to-lynch-us-1.293089\" rel=\"follow\">stormed a relief flotilla<\/a>\/convey headed towards Gaza carrying food, medical supplies, and other relief materials in an attempt to bypass a blockade of the Gaza territories. The raid on the flotilla resulted in the death of 16 aid workers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A post <a href=\"http:\/\/twitpic.com\/1sow9i\" rel=\"follow\">on twitpic<\/a> earlier today asks<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Can\u2019t get why #flotilla is not trending; censored, why?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>and articles on the web search for explanations, since it\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/dowzocalypse.com\/2010\/05\/31\/flotilla-aid-murder-twitter-censorship\/\" rel=\"follow\">very clear<\/a> that flotilla is indeed a trending topic, going by the trendistic results (see below).<\/p>\n<p>Some are saying that twitter needs to manually approve trending topics to prevent abuse, etc. but there\u2019s something that doesn\u2019t add up: <strong>why is twitter actively blocking searches for #flotilla?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You can check it out for yourself: for the past hour or so, searching twitter for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/\" rel=\"follow\">#flotilla<\/a> turns up the dreaded \u201cSomething is technically wrong\u201d page <strong>but searching for any other #topic works!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As they say, the proof is in the pudding (images after the jump):<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p> <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<p><b>Update #1<\/b> \u0130srail is now appearing on the Trending Topics list, but the search for it also returns a technical error. Reports indicate that these searches are being blocked from the USA (LA-region), Middle East, Sweden, UK, and more. However, search is working from Germany and Denmark. Check back for more updates.<\/p>\n<p><b>Update #2<\/b> According to twitter PR, it was a technical issue and they&#8217;ll &quot;post more info&quot; shortly. No sign of that follow-up info yet though.. makes it hard to believe.<\/p>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Searches for #flotilla:<\/p>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img class=\"colorbox-824\"  decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/4655726706_e703d13a79_b.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Searches for #somethingelse:<\/p>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img class=\"colorbox-824\"  decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/4655726738_326cbb7c61_b.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Flotilla as a trending topic on trendistic:<\/p>\n<p>   <br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img class=\"colorbox-824\"  decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/flotilla.png\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick background: earlier today, IDF soldiers stormed a relief flotilla\/convey headed towards Gaza carrying food, medical supplies, and other relief materials in an attempt to bypass a blockade of the Gaza territories. The raid on the flotilla resulted in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/twitter-actively-censoring-flotilla\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[730,729,285,517,287,319],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","tag-censorship","tag-human-rights","tag-israel","tag-media","tag-palestine","tag-twitter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xDa-di","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2606,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/2606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}