Slashdot Mirror
Is Twitter Censoring Wikileaks Trends?
comforteagle writes "There are suspicions coming to the surface this morning that Twitter may be censoring WikiLeaks-related tweets from forming a trending topic. Why is still unclear at this point, as during Iranian protests a short while ago Twitter appeared to be in the fray of helping to spread the word. As of this morning it appears that Twitter may have some explaining to do. One of Twitter's engineers has chimed in over the weekend, but some aren't convinced."
For Wikileaks trending. You can see here that Wikileaks was hot on Friday, not Sunday. Google Trends (for Google searches, not Tweets) actually heavily corresponds to this. Further more, if you look at Google Trends, you'll note that the recent trending on Friday wasn't even half of what it peaked at during the Afghan war cable release. It might even be less than that edited journalist shooting video. After checking Google trends for Sunday, "wikileaks" wasn't in the top twenty. I'm checking other Twitter harvesting sites for trends and not seeing anything that would indicate that Sunday should have been a huge day for Wikileaks on Twitter.
By no means conclusive evidence one way or the other though.
My work here is dung.
I can't recall what it was, but Scienceblogs was atwitter with claims that Twitter was censoring a science/religion/something event that was being discussed. It turns out that (shock) people just weren't talking about it as incredibly frequently as they had been when it started trending.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Maybe the type of persons which like to tweet, are short attention spanned twit which are not interested in complex long running news like wiki leaks, but on what DJ hammer took on breakfast. Thus it not appearing in the trends, as the person concerned with it are a minority. I have only anecdotal evidence for it, but I work in IT, with a high percentage of nerd, and all looked at me with big eye when I mentioned wiki leaks last week, and today they just shrugged. The average sheep DO NOT CARE.
Perhaps that so many people are talking about wikileaks, it has stopped trending. Just like what was required for Justin Bieber.
So now every time someone gets cold fries in their happy meal, it's going to be part of a big government conspiracy to stop freedom loving nerds from wiki leaking.
Maybe the wikileaks are overhyped and dull, and Justin Bieber really is more interesting to the world population?
If there is this kind of heavy handed crap going on at companies we are supposed to trust, we all know where to send the evidence. I know that not everyone agrees, but somehow I feel better in the world knowing that Wikileaks is on call, doing its thing.
Obviously, everybody should just obsessively tweet #heilwhale until the problem resolves itself.
Extra credit will, naturally, be awarded for terrifying photochops of the failwhale with Chertoff's skull-like face...
This is all so fucked up, we should all go back to basic internet principles. The internet should not be used for anything other than porn.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
According to one of the commenters, this may be a result of adjusting the algorithms to git rid of endless "Bieber" related trends.
At what price Bieber Freedom?
If a forest of trees fall, but no one can report it, did it really happen?
I am amazed at how many fronts have been opened against wikileaks in the past few weeks. Clearly, there are people who want it crushed, but I can't recall ever seeing the number and variety of attacks against another "thorn in the side" as we're seeing against wikileaks.
The takeaway lesson: those who try to learn the truth and spread the truth will be destroyed.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
So let us see how this appears to be working out
The American government is looking very poor to the rest of the world as comments which should never have been made public are out in the open.
The American government can make it very difficult for companies, not say cutting off accounts etc, but reducing their lobying power, not providing the same level of overseas visas etc, perhaps even asking for other investigations (something tax related) which will come to nothing but none of them want the light shined in that direction.
So, apart from a few 'headlines' the urge to ask content aggregators to 'not help' certain topics has been happening. In almost all cases of 'trends' it generally needs a helping hand, just as print newspapers, listing in top 5/10 'most viewed'.
This is not a conspiracy, but plain and simple politics.
Anon
inability to "deal with" Wikileaks.
Or maybe they recognize that the whole thing, while major, is being overblown while there are other, vastly more pressing issues with a major branch of government to deal with (I won't say which one, but it begins with an L and makes sausage factories look bad).
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
I think they were being censored, but it is hard to tell for certain.
Anyway, the latest Wikileak states that there is going to be a huge scandal and uproar about the ne
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Blame Justin Bieber
What happened was... all the JB fans were skewing the trending topics by tweeting about him all the time.
So twitter changed TTs from being a measure of amount to a measure of growth (or derivative)
And I think wikileaks grew slower, hence no TTs.
how long until
Why is it that for some, every time something negative happens for Wikileaks, there must be a conspiracy that is behind it.
1. When the first accusations were leverage against Assange for rape; many were screaming that the CIA was behind it.
2. When Amazon stop hosting Wikileaks, the government MUST HAVE been behind it.
3. When Paypal froze Wikileak's account, more government pressure.
And now this. Could it have occurred to those people that the US government isn't behind every one of those things?
..... ehh never mind. forget it.
Read radical news here
Yeah, there is nothing newsworthy about the kidnappings, torture, deaths, coverups and treaty violations found in the latest release. No one cares about those things, they're just being drama queens.
Links to the things mentioned above can be found on this post:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1896026&cid=34443616
This sentence no verb.
If its so , blehhh.... then why are major leaders and govt people so upset and angry!?
Maybe if americans got of their ass, and looked at NONE usa websites, like UK ones they might learn something apart from
the lies that DoD corporates dish out (aka GE/NBC & friends)
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Mainstream media is really nice to Dems now b/c they're in power, just like they were so nice to Bush, and especially to Palin, avoiding any nasty unwanted questions about civilian deaths or torture or breaking the Geneva convention or lying about -- well, everything....
What is a target of opportunity?
The website describes it:
"This website is devoted to fighting Terrorism and forced integration of Marxist oriented ideals and values into the American mainstream.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/
It's about to get really dirty.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america
And the government does what it can to encourage it.
The cable leaks have almost no worthy information. They don't show cover-ups, torture or anything else we didn't already know about. It's the equivalent on getting caught passing a note at primary school.
The Yanks have little to worry about.
If you look to Twitter for your moral guidance you`re a twit anyway. Grow up.
If you can't afford it you wont have it. Julian Assange is not promoting freedom, the response from the government to this cyber911 will be to crack down on all of our freedoms. Julian Assange is ruining it for us all.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/03/wikileaks.takedown/index.html
Posts like yours are somewhat frustrating because it fuels other paranoid people into believing that conspiracy is everywhere, when in fact, its nothing but self delusion fueled by others of a like-minded delusion. Much like moon landing conspiracies, there is absolutely no reason to give them anything other than a cursory glance.
You're suggesting that Google and Twitter are part of a massive conspiracy to hide a leak of material which largely, everyone who reads, already knows. Obviously, there are some exceptions, but those exceptions largely only serve to fill in detail and cause governmental chaos. Furthermore, you are suggesting that twitter is purposely censoring while Google is not only censoring but reformulating statistical modules to not only up hold the conspiracy, but but to ensure the results match that of twitter.
Which is more likely? People are just not that interested in reading about fairly well known information, which they are already not interested in reading day to day? Or that there is some massive conspiracy involving all of the world's governments and companies, both large and small?
Exactly. If these feelings persist in other facets of your life, medication might be worth reviewing with your doctors.
39-year-old Australian supplied the Metropolitan Police with contact details upon arriving in the UK in October. Police sources confirmed that they have a telephone number for Mr Assange and are fully aware of where he is staying.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wikileaks-chief-what-will-he-do-next-2148813.html
I do not understand how he can leak information if the authorities know where he sits? Cannot they use the Echelon or NSA to block or modify his traffic?
You know this is the reaction that I would expect. There is always a deal to be made. Its a lot easier for these sites to duck and cover instead of making a stand. I don't really blame them, but I do blame us collectively. We are standing by while the future turns into 1984. Truth is most people are too ignorant/preoccupied to realize or care. I'm becoming sooo pessimistic about the future of online rights. Here is what I think will happen:
All online activity is tracked and retained - just like speed cameras always watching so that in the end you get fined
We will all be forced to run some kinda spy program (think the warden from WoW) in order to be connected to the internet - you can try to fool it and you might get away with it for awhile but it'll get you eventually
Won't be long and there will be cameras that can identify you based on your facial features and the way you walk - these records will be retained for your safety
Before long most of these services will be privatized if they weren't from the start to save money and increase efficiency
The data will then no longer be collected by the government but a private agency - kinda like your phone/internet/mail/parking meters - and thus are under a completely different set of rules then a government run agency and those rules can be changed at any time for any reason. When at&t makes sure that their network routes US calls through non-US territory where the nsa intercepts them this doesn't apparently break the word of the law - but you've murdered the spirit. Fourth amendment free areas are popping up everywhere! Apparently it doesn't break the law if you can make good cause for it. Think DUI checkpoints. Border Patrol Checkpoints up to what like 50 miles from the border? Am I going crazy or does all this sound like bad things that are more then likely going to happen? Maybe there is a support group for people like me? A forum perhaps?
Twitter, like Google, has been close to Obama. [Citation Needed] Please refrain from saying something like this without actually backing it up.
Computers can reverse entropy.
This is the twitter topic data-plot from yesterday, courtesy of bubloy
http://bubbloy.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/trending.jpg?w=640&h=224
Yesterday, wikileaks has 7 times as much traffic as the second most popular topic.
just like they were so nice to Bush,
You know I have trouble telling if you are being sarcastic, or if you truly believe that, but you appear to actualy believe that the mainstream press was nice to Bush. The press continuously played up every accusation against Bush. The mainstream press was talking about how bad the economy was when unemployment was 4.8%. Now that unemployment is 9.8%, they are constantly talking about how the economy is doing wonderful, it's just those "unexpectedly" high unemployment numbers that we need to worry about.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Twitter, like Google, has been close to Obama.
Are you... joking? I honestly can't tell.
Comment of the year
Let me guess... Tin hat for Christmas?
Did you read the sites?
What a crock of shit!
By this time in Twitter's huge rise, previous services like IM had already spawned several competing networks inspired by the original pioneer. Twitter is even easier to duplicate. How come Twitter still has a monopoly on the service? After a few years of millions of people using it, the "Twitter" protocol should be either standard or have big gateways for other networks of users to all intercommunicate with it.
I'm surprised Google doesn't offer a competitor, or Yahoo, or Microsoft, or Disney.
--
make install -not war
There will be unlimited fronts opened up against Wikileaks and their supporters. Vigilantes around the world will be involved in shutting Wikileaks down and in stopping the individuals associated with it.
How did the USA respond after the 911 attacks?
How do you think the USA will respond after the cyber 911?
The Cyber Command probably has been waiting for this moment for a while now.
I'm amazed you found virgin ground between the old line of "The media has a liberal bias (because we've always said they have a liberal bias)" and "Reality has a well known liberal bias."
Sorry to spoil your fun, but I'm going to say that in fact, twitter has a well known conservative bias. For example, whose tweets are the only tweets that the media actually pays attention to? Sarah Palin.
If there is this kind of heavy handed crap going on at companies we are supposed to trust, we all know where to send the evidence. I know that not everyone agrees, but somehow I feel better in the world knowing that Wikileaks is on call, doing its thing.
You are going to have them thinking you are a Wikileaks supporter. Then their heavy handed tactics will be directed at you.
No I don't think anyone wants to mess with the government. If you had any idea of just how heavy the tactics are...
Read the article
If my company had any connection with Assange, I would sever all ties and distance myself, and my company, from him.
Anyone guilty of or under investigation of violating the U.S. 1917 Espionage Act would not be good to associate with.
Seriously. Twitter is a company and will censor shit as all communication/media companies do from time to time. Twitter isn't "the voice of the people" or any shit like that. It is an inane website for mostly inane people to display their inanity in 140 characters and track the other inane peoples reactions. The only thing Twitter added to the systems that came before it was easy mobile access and popularity tracking, and no one actually seems to use the mobile version any more.
It is killing me that our already dumb society is trying to dumb itself down to thoughts that can fit in 140 characters.
P.S. Someone should invent a social media symbolic language. I bet you could cover the majority of posts with very few symbols.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
This sentence no verb.
A group of dictionary-writers were arguing about what to put into the next dictionary. With the recent creation of new verbs, by celebrities, like the verb "refudiate", the linguists were in a deep dilemma. Do they recognize made-up words? Do they banish such words from the dictionary, which is supposed to represent proper English? So they broke into groups to come up with recommendations.
After lunch, a spokesman from each group stood up, and made a recommendation. Here's what happened next:
First Spokesman: "Our group recommends that we sentence such verbs to a 5-year banishment from the official publication."
Second Spokesman: "And our group sentences no new verbs to banishment."
Question from the audience: "Which recommends no sentencing?"
Second Spokesman, pointing to his group: "This sentence no verb."
sentence: –verb (used with object) to pronounce sentence upon; condemn to punishment.
so you are saying that, if assange didnt use the freedom, noone would censor it ?
oh gee. i didnt think it that way ! so, its ok as long as we dont use our freedoms - we wont risk losing them !!!
Read radical news here
Actually I did. And I did not find ANY reliable and trustworthy link between the two. Between somebody who makes grandiose claims and somebody who asks some proof of the claims, who is the bigger troll?
Computers can reverse entropy.
You would expect the trends to generally reflect the highest-profile topics, true enough. If they don’t, though, that isn’t censorship. They’re like a news network. You expect them to tell you what’s hot. They don’t always. It’s certainly a bias, but it isn’t censorship.
Censorship would be telling you that you can’t post that Twitter update because you tagged it #wikileaks.
Censorship would be mysteriously long page loads and 404 errors on feeds of users who posted wikileaks-related tweets.
Censorship would be banning users who posted about wikileaks.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
And it belongs on /.
For the last few years, things have been moving into the cloud. Somehow decentralized systems like irc have been replaced with centralized social media platforms. Nice cheap hosting and sharing services with some teeny, tiny clauses in their tos have become widely available.
Wikileaks is the perfect storm that tests just how much we can trust the life in the cloud.
Maybe RMS, that guy who looks and talks like Jesus was right all along.
The summary mentions the role of twitter during the Iranian unrest following the election.
Let me point out the obvious:
* Twitter is a company based in the US. Iran is a non-friendly regime to the US.
* If there were a twitter equivalent based in Iran, you can be sure it would have been busy about the cable leaks.
Got it?
In general, pretending that the parallel with the Iranian incident has any merit can be thought of as a lame effort at sarcasm at best and to be ignorant/uneducated at worst.
It would seem to me the burden of evidence rests with the person making the claim.
Eschew Obfuscation
The former member of Wikileaks Board of Directors has criticism about Wikileaks:
http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-funds.htm
It seems Assange is using funds to his own personal gain.
What I'm waiting is that Wikileaks leaks itself and:
1) Publishes use of (donated) funds and how much wikileaks profits when providing early access of documents to news corporations?
2) Publishes its own internal emails and name of its members.
3) Where is Sunshine Press/Wikileaks (foundation?) registered and where you can get accounting information?
It may be that Assange is in a process of transferring Wikileaks-funds to his own offshore (Swiss?) bank accounts..
Seriously. Go get some meds, you're fucking nuts.
Its seems to me the burden of evidence rests with the party making the claim.
Eschew Obfuscation
Twitter's trends are based off growth, not volume. This conspiracy shit is getting ridiculous. If this keeps up we're going to log into slashdot and see a story titled: "Assange orders extra hot Skim Vente Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks but given NON-SKIM MILK INSTEAD in Starbuck/Government conspiracy to SLOWLY KILL HIM!!!`1!"
Conspiracy theories in my mind always come down to two basic questions: How many people would would need to be in the know in order to pull off such a large scale deception? And how much do you trust those people to stay silent about the conspiracy?
Let's put it this way: Top secret documents accessible by people with reasonably high security clearance are now making their rounds around the web and news media. Do you really think nobody is going to think twice about involving potentially thousands of employees in covering up secrets when clearly it can't work for some of the most classified documents in the world?
> One of Twitter's engineers has chimed in over the weekend
This whistle-blower should post the evidence that twitter is censoring wikileaks on wikileaks.
Thats what they want you to think...
Fair enough, and likely true in this case. However:
Is this really what's happening? I'm more under the impression all the jaded bootlickers were suspiciously silent in the last weeks -- now there is ONE allegiation which turns out to be not true, and BAM! they all come back out of the woods, making their shitty little speeches like yours.
I see what you did there. What is so funny about changing the world that you have to put it in quotes? The only people being 100% cynical about this are bootlickers, and no amount of monkey dance can change that.
Uh, you must not be talking about the press in the USA, because they were sucking Bush cock during both his terms.
Twitter, like Google, has been close to Obama. Wikileaks is making the Obama Administration (especially Hillary Clinton) look really bad both through the release of what was in those cables
Actually the Clinton state department comes off pretty well in those cables; professional, perceptive, and hard-working.
This is only slightly less retarded than asking why the mainstream media tends to run interference for Democrats, spinning everything they do in a positive light even if it's something that would have a Republican hanging from a cross on capitol hill.
Yeah and I bet your post will be modded down because everyone here is a commie librul! Wake up LAMESTREAM media. Do you think Clinton would have been censured or Spitzer forced to resign if they were not Republicans? How about all those Democrats like Sanford, Ensign and Vitter who were given a pass on their sex scandal and remained in office?
Don't even get me started on the last Democratic administration in the White House! Between the illegal wiretaps on US Citizens, the erosion of civil liberties, starting two wars where hundreds of thousand innocent civilians died, a treasury secretary and democratic appointed fed chair Bernanke telling BoA to lie on their SEC filings to cover financial issues did the LAMESTREAM media cover any of this in detail? No, they just glossed over it and used their media empire controlled by the nefarious liberal Rupert Murdoch to change the public discourse on seriously illegal stuff. The democratic VP at the time, Dick Cheney, even leaked classified documents containing the name of a current undercover operative to the press and then lied to congress! A republican Bill Clinton was censured for lying about a BJ but a leak of classified information that put a undercover operative at risk(more people than the pentagon says has been hurt by the wikileaks information) and nothing happens to them! The Democratic president at the time, George Bush, is even going bragging that he committed war crimes without any calls from the press that action be taken against him. You can be if it were a Republican in charge then they would have been impeached if not sent to the Hague.
You even have the librul media repeating false claim by democrats that giving money to really, really rich people who won't spend it is better for the economy than giving it to poor people who will immediately spend every penny(because, well, poor and things like food, rent and heating costs money that they do not have to spend.) I bet if it was republicans making those claims they would be laughed at by every media organization.
And don't get me started on the Bircher's/Tea Party advocates in the democratic party and their queen Sarah. You can bet if they were a fringe of the Republicans and not Democrats they would be scorned as unserous and a little dumb rather than celebrated by the libruls at Fox News.
The media is totally biased against Republicans!!!!!
P.S. You’re an idiot.
P.P.S. The problem isn’t Republican vs Democrat for media interference, the problem is those in power vs the rest of us. Favorable stories give the reporters access and “credibility” with the people they cover. Write a bad story and you can be black balled and see major obstacles for your career. What seems to make it worse is that it doesn’t matter who is in power the media will uncritically report whatever they are told and rather than fact check you get an equally biased and BS sound bite from the “other” side to give the appearance of balance. Republicans win, Democrats win and we the Citizens get screwed.
If you're being pedantic about it, that would need to be "This sentences no verb."
What are you trying to prove, anyway? That my signature makes sense?
This sentence no verb.
Large scale conspiracies and secrets can be held for fairly lengthy durations. Decades even, when the information is worth keeping secret. Look at projects like the F-117. Likewise, there are some aviation projects which have been ongoing for decades and all we know is, to paraphrase, by even today's standards, they seem pure science fiction.
Conspiracies happen all the time. But, contrary to common misconception, they need not be nefarious. Some times they are a birthday party. Other times, they save lives and no one ever knows; or at least not for many decades.
But, as you rightly point out, there are costs associated with conspiracies. IMOHO, you left out one variable. What is the benefit of a conspiracy in comparison to maintaining it. By that measure alone, the conspiracy cries here are just dumb. Spending political capital on issues which largely don't matter to the public would be as dumb as believing there is a conspiracy here.
Who knows, there may be a conspiracy at work here. But at the end of the day, there is absolutely zero reason to believe there is a conspiracy which means, for now, we're operating in the realm of the truly paranoid.
Not sure about Twitter but Google's ties to the Obama administration are well documented:
http://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/11/11/mr-issa-take-note-of-google-and-obama-coziness/
and
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/23/googleburton/
As a commenter suggests in the story:
"A game for Tweetdeck users.
Start two new columns, one for "wikileaks" one for any of the subjects on twitter's worldwide trend list (there's some guy called Mike Ashley who is top trending on two different versions of his name right now).
Now, which column is moving fastest?
That's why nobody believes Twitter isn't censoring."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Iran proved that.
If there is something topical to be leaked, Cryptome will post it in minutes, instead of weeks or years later.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
For all of the conspiracy stuff out there - and I happen to be opposed to the public release (especially the poison pill encrypted, unredacted torrent - holding others hostage because you are too cowardly to stand up for what you believe) it is pretty remarkable that this has all been released.
So the current government is speaking out against the leaks - and using *legal* powers to defend itself - I just am not that incensed.
JP
The cable leaks have almost no worthy information. They don't show cover-ups, torture or anything else we didn't already know about. It's the equivalent on getting caught passing a note at primary school.
The Yanks have little to worry about.
If nothing else they prove that everyone knew about these goings-on, and that it wasn't just the local evil men in the field. They clearly illustrate systematic corruption at the highest levels.
You can opine that even this is not new, but that's just your cynicism talking. Joe Public does not believe that Obama is guilty of high crimes. The cables illustrate that conspiracy charges, at a minimum, would in fact stick in a fair court of law.
Usernames can't be trending topics, and a ton of people use the tag #wikileaks.
Uh, you must not be talking about the press in the USA, because they were sucking Bush cock during both his terms.
Since you're rebutting something that you well know contradicts what you're putting forward - please do feel free to toss in a link or two.
They show that the highest levels of our government (Secretary of State) were actively aware and involved in knowingly kidnapping, toturing, and otherwise abusing a man they _knew_ to be innocent. That is not newsworthy? That is something we didn't already know about. I mean, we knew it happened, but we didn't know how far up it went.
Well that largely depended on where you got your news from.
Julian Assange (new) arrest warrant arrives in UK
shitty moronic justifications. self-fooling. delusive.
....' is not a valid excuse for censorship.
it doesnt matter what freedom is used. freedom is freedom. 'you are using freedom for
people can use their freedom for whatever they want. THAT IS WHY IT IS CALLED FREEDOM.
as long as morons like you around, who use various justifications and add prefixes to concept of freedom to allow/disallow it conditionally, there can be no freedom.
the FREE part in the word freedom, apparently, eludes you.
Read radical news here
Swiss bank freezes Julian Assange's (personal) account
show me the place where it says 'freedoms are conditional', anywhere in bill of rights, or human rights declaration. show me the place it says 'there is freedom of speech BUT'.
if you cant, dont bullshit from your butt. what you are doing is just justifying repression. doesnt matter what your excuse or reason is.
Read radical news here
Because the sole measure of how well an economy is doing is unemployment, right?
I am trolling
I'm not sure what news you're watching but I can recall months ago every major news channel ranting about the republican rally and the variables that lead up to it including the debt, economy, health care, and unemployment. The only people claiming any real media bias are extreme left or right media groups who are more concerned with getting their viewers all rattled up for ratings than anything else.
Because the sole measure of how well an economy is doing is unemployment, right?
I don't know about you, but I'm doing far worse now than I was under Bush, and I'm still employed. So, yeah, I'd say that from my point of view, the economy is far worse now than it was before.
Of course, I live in Massachusetts, which completely fucked up their health care system, so part of the increase in costs is due to that. Luckily for the rest of you, the problems that Massachusetts created for itself (more people getting care from the emergency room than ever before, fewer medical services being offered, fewer doctors, and on) are local to the state, and aren't a huge mistake that the federal government is duplicating across the nation.
...Oh, wait.
I should probably post AC since I have, in the past, supported the health care program, but recent facts of how it went in Massachusetts show it to be a complete disaster. And that's a link to an NPR story, so this isn't just random conservative talking points, it really has been a complete disaster, which the entire nation gets to share in now. Yay change.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I'd also like to add: 3) What are the consequences of being caught vs the consequences in letting the event happen? 3.5) Are the odds in your favour enough to take the chance given the answer to the above?
In this case, the information is out there. Most of the damage is already done. How much damage is would even be avoided by removing it from trending topics?
Now think about how much damage it would cause to get caught asking/forcing major companies like Google and Twitter to help "reduce" the damage. I'm not only talking about the damage to the government. I'm also talking about the damage to Google and Twitter and other involved sites.
Not to mention, for a government who would go to lengths to force/ask Google and Twitter to remove trending topics, they've done a pretty awful job at reducing the damage in other mediums.
I'm sorry, I didn't take the time to list all of the economic indicators that were positive for most of George W. Bush's eight years and have been negative and getting worse in the two years Obama has been in office.
Actually, unemployment is a very good proxy for most economic indicators, especially when you have large swings in unemployment. Additionally, while occasionally there have been times where unemployment was low but the economy was otherwise weak, they are always short and I don't ever recall a time when unemployment was high while the economy was otherwise strong (except when the economy was just starting to recover and even then unemployment wasn't this high). When unemployment is high with no expectation of significant improvement, the economy is in very bad shape. Currently, the Administration is saying that unemployment is likely to stay at over 9% for the foreseeable future.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That's because the content of the leaks is not the point.
It's the leaks themselves that are the point.
Wikileaks' goal is to make secretive regimes so paranoid about leaks, that it impairs their ability to operate efficiently.
This is a great read: https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Only governments can censor. Twitter isn't a government entity.
The cable leaks have almost no worthy information. They don't show cover-ups, torture or anything else we didn't already know about. It's the equivalent on getting caught passing a note at primary school.
The Yanks have little to worry about.
I love America but now I also hate and despise the government of the United States of America, I used to be a strong and vocal friend but they've become an enemy. If I am representative for others similar to myself on the European right (and that might well be the case) then the government "Yanks" should shit their pants because it means they have extremely few friends left.
Yes the cables have contained little new although it has been a source of confirmation and embellishment --at least to this anti-idiotarian. However for this "rightist" the US federal government response to the cable leaks gave the most important information of all: the government of the United States of America is now unequivocally the enemy of freedom.
It's the same as with this year's Nobel Peace Prize; when I first heard who had gotten it I was somewhat surprisingly (at least to myself) lukewarm and skeptical, I was unsure if it was a move that would help rather than hinder increased freedom for the Chinese people. Then the Chinese government removed any and all doubt I had with their reaction.
I'm highly skeptical of the "leftism" and editorial mischief and propaganda that Wikileaks have previously done. I'm skeptical of Assange's personal character. These things remain, however the false accusation of rape and the massive public censorship taking place (DNS, Amazon, PayPal, PostFinance) makes those issues completely irrelevant and insignificant in comparison. It is the current actions of the United States government that has convinced me that as of right now the United States of America is a totalitarian enemy of freedom.
So for now I download and seed the insurance file http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5723136/b9f0899e6537431b462ffcb16d9398ad
Not much but I know two things:
1. This "neo-con" "far right" freedom lover - me - is no longer a friend or ally of the totalitarian government of the United States of America.
2. Other European "rightist" freedom lovers are taking notice, some publicly under full names in national newspapers.
One cannot sustain freedom without responsibility nor can one sustain responsibility without freedom.
They're not censoring #wookieleaks, though, right?
"That's a nice domain you've got there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."
That's called plausible deniability. Now you can't tell the difference between censorship and bias.