Twitter is not censoring flotilla. | Hacker News Reader

Twitter is not censoring flotilla.

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26 pointsspif25 comments

I am disgusted by the "twitterati" in this case. What happened off the coast of Gaza is likely to very significant, and "we" get all puffed up yelling bloody censorship over what is very likely to be a technical fluke.

The story is highly publicized in mainstream media. It's wide open. Whoever allegedly decided that censoring a topic from trending on Twitter would matter even the slightest is too stupid to have a job at Twitter with access to do that.

What confounds me is that we have people saying they'd rather not see discussions on this event on HN due to its political nature, and yet the Everybody Draw Muhammed Day post two weeks ago was quite lively.

I mean, geez, people died on that boat and commenters are more interested in some sidebar widget in Twitter?

Okay, so that particular word is not in the trending topics. News flash: "Justin Bieber" isn't either, and I'll bet my life that his fans are still tweeting about him. Twitter just released a new trending topic algorithm, and they specifically said that it wouldn't catch every trend.

This particular topic was at around 0.85% of all tweets yesterday. What type of algorithm would ignore this traffic, in favor of say around 0.05% (for first topic).

This has some human fingerprints.

Today - some related topics are making it to the trends.

> What type of algorithm would ignore this traffic

Here's are some algorithms that would cause behavior different than what you would expect:

* Take rate of tweets into account

* Take the geography of tweeters into account

* Only allow a topic to trend if it has an odd number of letters

Obviously the real algorithm probably doesn't count the letters in the topic but it could be if it was a bug. It appears your mental model for how something gets into trending topics is:

* Take the topics that have the highest total tweets per day.

That is almost certainly not correct.

> This has some human fingerprints.

You absolutely don't know that. It's pure speculation.

Seems to be working for me. Here are some tweets:

> jonathanfryer: If Iran not Israel had carried out an attack on aid flotilla, we'd now be at war. Western double standards make me sick.

> Sarabughazal: "your blood reached the shores of Gaza before your aid" #flotilla #freedomflotilla

> aslanmedia: Shocking footage from Al-Jazeera before communication to ships was cut off. http://bit.ly/cZyYYw (expand) #israel #flotilla #gaza

It's different from trending. Someone was suggesting that the word isn't trending.

Erhm. Am I not getting something?

It IS in the trending topics: http://imgur.com/QxuqV

Is the story here that they are censoring something or that they are not? Because if it were the latter, I'd be sad. Do we assume that for social networks to censor communications on recent politically grave events is the default now?

The story is:

* nothing was censored

* it just wasn't showing as a trending topic

* Twitter is probably just having stupidity in their system (as usual)

* somebody wanted to get lots of clicks

* somebody wrote an inflammatory blog post

* HN upvoters fell for it

Forgive me, but ... what's the relevance of that word? Isn't a flotilla just a bunch of ships? Why would Twitter censor it?

Israeli IDF shot at and attacked a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip a few hours ago through international waters.

EDIT: Differing reports as to casualties: ranging from 0 to 30 dead.

Just to add: it wasn't simply an arbitrary attack--Israel and Egypt are maintaining a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip ever since Hamas took control of the region. Israel allows some degree of humanitarian aid to pass through the blockade, but only after inspection (to ensure they aren't carrying weapons to Hamas). The flotilla refused to be boarded and inspected by the IDF.

EDIT: It also appears that, after the IDF tows the flotilla to port in Israel and deports everyone aboard, they're going to inspect the cargo and send it to Gaza anyway.

"The flotilla refused to be boarded and inspected by the IDF." er source? because the people on the flotilla are saying they had no problem with inspections. It seems you're justifying the murder of civilians in international waters.

My own opinions are irrelevant--the flotilla didn't comply with the IDF's instructions and instead attempted to run the blockade; the IDF boarded the ships and had them towed to an Israeli port. Both sides accuse the other of initiating violence, with reports that the flotilla passengers attacked the troops and tried to grab for their weapons. The IDF also seems to be claiming to have discovered weapons aboard the flotilla.

So you have one side possibly murdering civilians in international waters, or possibly maintaining in conjunction with one of its neighbors a blockade in order to protect their own people from the terrorists who control Gaza; you have another side openly defying this blockade and intentionally running it just to create this kind of confrontation in the name of civil disobedience. Does it still sound like I'm "justifying" one side over the other? This blockade has been up for three years and the full context behind today's events stretches back to decades of conflict; it's difficult to give an impartial account of things. I only ask that you take my attempts in good faith and add whatever information you have in similar good faith, instead of just collapsing everything down to "IDF are murderers and Phil is justifying it".

You are right

At least 10 dead according to Israel Defense Forces

So why would Twitter censor the word?

There was a rumor they were because it wasn't showing up on the trending topics list despite it being a very trending topic.

Because this is a very, very, very big deal. Let me be clear: It's a big fucking deal. It's huge.

It was attacked in international waters. On board were a Nobel Peace Prize Laurette, a Swedish MP and three German MPs (members of parliament/congress). No one yet knows the fallout of this, but here in Europe, no one can talk about anything else.

Is there a precedent of Twitter censoring "Big Deal" words before? IIRC @ev actually recommended Al Jazeera's Gaza Twitter feed during last year's escalation there.

If anything, it's a case study in how conspiracy theories grow: Every Twitter user is familiar with these type of issues. However in this case Israel is involved, which gave rise to various suspicions of "censorship". When some people then reported the search working fine for them, the theory grew a "location-dependent" subtheory, and users were "reporting" blocked/unblocked per their location. No doubt, a month from now significant parts of the Internet will be referring to the "flotilla censorship" as a known fact.

I thought the point isn't that twitter is censoring tweets with the word 'flotilla', but that it's not appearing as a trending topic.

However, both #freedomflotilla and 'Gaza flotilla' are trending right now.

It's not censoring #flotilla search - it IS censoring trending topics. A highly selective, possibly first case, of word censoring. It's also censoring #gaza, #israel along with #flotilla.

This sort of selection is apparently based on an operator action/directives rather than automated one (#israil - Turkish for #isreal is not censored).

Now, this is turning highly political and opinionated as Twitter hasn't previously censored #iran or other politically charged words.

I'm from Turkey which the ships sailed out from. IDF attacked unarmed ships in international waters, They killed about 19 on board and forced the ships into an Israeli port, so far injured is rejecting medical aid from israeli hospitals and medical staff, I'm afraid there can be more loss of life.

It's very sad that they are still manipulating the news and trying to change the world's perpective on the subject.

It's plain and simple, they are actively trying to kill a nation of people, they are attempting genocide, which they should be aware of more then most of the world is the most awful atrocity mankind can inflict.

Support the humanitarian peaceful effort of good people.

God be with them.

Even if I agree with you mindcreek here, if possible, I'd invite anyone to keep political discussions out of HN. This just isn't the right venue imho.

you are rigth i also hate politics...

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