Bin Laden's Death Causes Twitter Record

gabbo529 writes "Twitter has been a source of breaking news since its inception five years ago, and the social network was used at a high rate last night with the death of Osama Bin Laden. [Sunday night] saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever. From 10:45 p.m. to 2:20 a.m. ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second."

Comments

Re:First Trout!

[Anonymous Coward]

Second plaice!

First joke I saw tweeted.

[Anonymous Coward]

A joke only UK readers will get:

Who says you can't take a Bin out on a bank holiday.

Brum tish!

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[symes]

My favourite was the commented posted (I think first on Reddit, but then circulated on Twitter) "At least they let him see the Royal Wedding".

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[Nerdfest]

For me it was "He shouldn't have bought that iPhone".

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[TapeCutter]

bin > dev/null

I think I read it on /. somewhere?

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[rainmouse]

They dumped his body at sea? Clearly they have not seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[Ihmhi]

Osama bin Laden hears the doorbell ring. He answers it and there are Navy SEALS at the door. "Great," he says, "I need this like I need a hole in the head."

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[Anonymous Coward]

That joke sounded way less forced when it was about Lincoln visiting the theater...

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[countertrolling]

Michael Moore's tweet wasn't so bad

MMFlint Michael Moore
RT @me_irl Beloved character actor Osama bin Laden, star of TV's "Fox News", dies age 54

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[cobrausn]

Clearly they have not seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Great, they got to shoot Osama Bin Laden and they never saw that movie. Now I have two reasons to be envious.

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[Anonymous Coward]

No he didn't, they said his compound didn't have TV or anything.

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet Osama's kicking himself for putting his address on PSN

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[mattack2]

I guess it was a retweet I saw.(*) Apparently a zillion other people said things like this, but I thought it was funny.

@AmandaStratton
The girl married her Prince. The bad guy is dead. It's a real Disney weekend here on Earth.

(*) Is there no way to easily search just for people I'm following? Why is there no "I am following" checkbox on the advanced search? How do you even GET to the advanced search (if you don't already have a bookmark) without doing a search first THEN clicking on advanced search?

Re:First joke I saw tweeted.

[the_hellspawn]

Rubbish! the corporate overlords still breath.

Sneaky...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I was going to go for a joke about how dastardly Bin Laden must have been, to provoke a massive DoS attack against western communications infrastructure just by getting shot.

Then I realized that we were talking about Twitter.

How many were re-tweets?

[gtvr]

Can you even measure that?

Wasn't Jackson the last big one?

[suso]

So the question I have now is, was Michael Jackson less significant or did the Jackson craze lead to more people knowing about Twitter and thus more people available to tweet about Bid Laden? The world may never know.

Re:Wasn't Jackson the last big one?

[Chrisq]

So the question I have now is, was Michael Jackson less significant

He only buggered a handful of kids.

Re:Wasn't Jackson the last big one?

[ciderbrew]

he had very big hands.

Room on the island?

[LordNacho]

Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.

As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years

I must have missed the memo from the record keepers of the Most Evilest Guys Alive Committee.

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler hasn't had the spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for well over 65 years now.
And now neither has Bin Laden.

Re:Room on the island?

[ciderbrew]

Well if you post as AC I can't add you to the list!

Re:Room on the island?

[RazzleFrog]

Interestingly enough, there are plenty of conspiracy theories that say Hitler didn't die in that bunker. That he slipped the Russians grasp and ran off to Argentina or Brazil to live out a long life.

Re:Room on the island?

[nu1x]

> Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years.

Well, what ? What has he done ? 9/11 doesn't count. He is not even comparable to Hitler, and Hitler was not really that bad, provided you have anti-semitic beliefs (which seems to be a really no-no these days, what could be the source of this stigma ? I mean, it seems to be ok to hate other people of arabic (jews are arabs with different religion) descent, and they are just trying to get by, not accruing unwarranted wealth and manipulating the masses).

Re:Room on the island?

[zach_the_lizard]

Bin Laden wasn't evilest guy alive; I'd say maybe Kim Jong Il holds that position. There're plenty of dictators with more blood on their hands than bin Laden. Bin Laden might not even break the top 10 in terms of death toll.

Re:Room on the island?

[LordNacho]

I didn't say I agreed with the label... just that if you stop the average Joe on the street and say "Hey, who's an evil guy?" Bin Laden would get a high score...

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bin Laden might not even break the top 10 in terms of death toll.

I don't think that's such a good way to quantify evil.

Re:Room on the island?

[nu1x]

Hey no prob, as you see, I was trolling myself. Sometimes my fingers just cannot resist. :P

Re:Room on the island?

[LordNacho]

Well, it's a draw between Kim Jong Il, Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc on the "Number of sharks with lasers" stat.

Re:Room on the island?

[SenseiLeNoir]

Although I am glad that this very evil person is no longer with us, I am not going to "celebrate", as my mind and heart is still with the victims and their families. For them, nothing is going to bring back their loss. The death of a man who either directly caused their death, or helped spawn the ideology that caused others to kill, represents a shallow victory.

This man caused the deaths of many, and instigated a sense of fear that today still affects millions accross the world in security, and other issues.

I will be tweeting and celebrating only when the tide of intolerance, and evil fanaticism is eradicated totally, and myself and my family can look forward to living free in a world where we do not have to fear that a person is plotting to kill me, just because my views of life and liberty is different to theirs.

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be tweeting and celebrating only when the tide of intolerance, and evil fanaticism is eradicated totally, and myself and my family can look forward to living free in a world where we do not have to fear that a person is plotting to kill me, just because my views of life and liberty is different to theirs.

Then you will never celebrate. Some of us recognize this, and are willing the celebrate the incomplete victories we do have.

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Number of sharks with lasers" stat is as good as any to measure something as subjective as 'evil'.

Re:Room on the island?

[Joce640k]

I thought it was Bert.

Re:Room on the island?

[mangu]

I will be tweeting and celebrating only when the tide of intolerance, and evil fanaticism is eradicated totally, and myself and my family can look forward to living free in a world where we do not have to fear that a person is plotting to kill me, just because my views of life and liberty is different to theirs.

That's not why they want to kill you, they want to kill you because you do not believe in the same religion they do.

To be more precise, they want to kill everyone who does not believe as fervently as they do in the same interpretation of their religion.

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians may pop up first

Re:Room on the island?

[Joce640k]

Rubbish. The million dead Iraqi/Afghan civilians were totally worth it to get to Osama.

Re:Room on the island?

[RazzleFrog]

Well the question is the definition of evil. Obviously Bin Laden's followers didn't think he was evil and I am sure Eva Braun didn't think Hitler was evil. It's all about perspective. They both may be deranged and misguided but were they evil if they truly believed they were doing the right thing for their people?

You have to remember the circumstances that gave rise to Hitler coming to power. The allies after WWI literally destroyed Germany economically for a war that wasn't really even their fault. The country was ripe for a charismatic, albeit looney, leader to step up. They saw him as a savior against the deprivations they suffered at the hands of the allied nations.

To me somebody who does something wrong and KNOWS that it is wrong is evil (for example, a priest molesting an altar boy). Somebody who does something horribly wrong but truly believes they are doing the right thing is not evil but just delusional.

Re:Room on the island?

[tedgyz]

I will be tweeting and celebrating only when the tide of intolerance, and evil fanaticism is eradicated totally, and myself and my family can look forward to living free in a world where we do not have to fear that a person is plotting to kill me, just because my views of life and liberty is different to theirs.

Good luck with that.

Re:Room on the island?

[darjen]

I'll bet every president since WW1 has caused more death than Bin Laden.

Re:Room on the island?

[mikael_j]

I always hoped that Bin Laden would end up choking to death on a handful of chili nuts just outside a Walmart (where he just purchased the aforementioned nuts), dressed in a pair of surf shorts and a mickey mouse t-shirt of course. That would've stirred up some very interesting controversy, bonus points if he had been using his real ID the whole time...

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but let's not forget that said priest doesn't see it as wrong -- it's part of a mass where he comforts the boy with his rod.

Re:Room on the island?

[wabb1t]

Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.

As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.

Seriously? Since when was Hitler the "Evilest Guy Alive"? I must have missed something.

Re:Room on the island?

[pspahn]

Does that mean it's okay to dress as Bin Laden for Halloween this year?

Re:Room on the island?

[HungryHobo]

If Hitler had been shot in 1937 he'd probably be remembered as one of the great statesmen of the 20th century.
He brought in a lot of very successful and very popular social programs.
He wasn't just popular for being charismatic.

If it wasn't for the genocide he would have had a very different place in the history books.

Re:Room on the island?

[pspahn]

It's possible to be both evil and delusional.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Banner_of_Heaven

Re:Room on the island?

[nedlohs]

top 10?

He is way lower than that. Basically every leader of a nation that has gone to war has a higher death toll, from ancient times on. Heck many single indiviuals beat out bin Laden and all his followers combined, Kermit Beahan and Thomas Ferebee both win that contest by at least an order of magnitude but I wouldn't call them evil.

it's a stupid metric.

Someone who murders 2 people is more evil than someone who rapes and tortures (but doesn't kill) 10,000?

Re:Room on the island?

[delinear]

You think you're out of touch? I didn't even realise Hitler was still in the running for "Evilest Guy Alive".

Re:Room on the island?

[delinear]

Thank god they didn't allow room for the same rumours about Bin Laden to spread and instead decided to prominently display his body to prove... what? They dumped it where?

Re:Room on the island?

[LordNacho]

Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.

As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.

Seriously? Since when was Hitler the "Evilest Guy Alive"? I must have missed something.

You deny he was alive at some point?

Maybe I need to specify that the title has passed through various people between 1945 and 2001. But most of them have been challengers who never became legends...

Re:Room on the island?

[mcvos]

Hitler was not really that bad, provided you have anti-semitic beliefs (which seems to be a really no-no these days, what could be the source of this stigma ? I mean, it seems to be ok to hate other people of arabic (jews are arabs with different religion) descent, and they are just trying to get by, not accruing unwarranted wealth and manipulating the masses).

By that reasoning, nobody is ever evil because there's always some nutcase who thinks he's okay.

By the way, Jews aren't Arabs. They're both Semites, however.

Re:Room on the island?

[mcvos]

I suggest we quantify evil through the number of successful vendor lock-ins and patent litigations.

Re:Room on the island?

[silanea]

This man caused the deaths of many, and instigated a sense of fear that today still affects millions accross the world in security, and other issues.

I cannot honestly say how much Bin Laden himself actually contributed to any loss of lives, but I can definitely say that any sense of fear along with that tide of intolerance was and is instigated not by some lone raving looney and his YouTube channel but by politicians on all sides of the fence. Osama Bin Laden has never posed any tangible threat to me. That puts him in stark contrast to the supranational police state that has been brought on us since 9/11.

Re:Room on the island?

[Hatta]

Bin Laden is only responsible for the deaths of around 3000 Americans. George W Bush is responsible for the deaths of over 3000 Americans, and over 100,000 civilians.

Re:Room on the island?

[SilentStaid]

You know, I always knew that as a crowd we tend to be biased... but please, think critically about what I write before modding it down. Osama declared a war that left several thousand NATO-allied troops and civilians dead. America declared two wars that have left hundreds of thousands dead in retaliation. If you can't see that, and you don't understand that you're bring irrational. I'm not arguing right or wrong, I'm just stating facts.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all well and good as a naive view of al qaeda. But as Bin Laden himself said, "If that were our motivation, we would have attacked Sweden." Al Qaeda's beef was primarily with U.S. foreign policy and the corrupt governments within the middle east(not that that actually justifies a single damn thing they did). Strong religious beliefs was used as a binding force, and certainly motivates a great many members. I just thing a primitive "they're out to get us because we're different" viewpoint makes it harder to make long-term strides towards resolving terrorism as an issue. Posting as AC because quoting bin laden makes me nervous.

Re:Room on the island?

[heathen_01]

Perhaps you've forgotten to weight the death toll by race.

Re:Room on the island?

[MiniMike]

I had also hoped he would choke on his own nuts, but not in quite the same way you envisioned.

Re:Room on the island?

[Black Parrot]

I will be tweeting and celebrating only when the tide of intolerance, and evil fanaticism is eradicated totally, and myself and my family can look forward to living free in a world where we do not have to fear that a person is plotting to kill me, just because my views of life and liberty is different to theirs.

That's not why they want to kill you, they want to kill you because you do not believe in the same religion they do.

To be more precise, they want to kill everyone who does not believe as fervently as they do in the same interpretation of their religion.

Yeah, that's why the struck the WTC and Pentagon instead of the Vatican and other bastions of religion.

Re:Room on the island?

[Black Parrot]

Does that mean it's okay to dress as Bin Laden for Halloween this year?

Depends on how many gun-toting idiots don't think he's really dead.

Re:Room on the island?

[cheekyjohnson]

"Wrong" is subjective in the first place.

horribly wrong

Whether something is "horribly wrong" or not depends on your perspective.

Re:Room on the island?

[1u3hr]

Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years

I'd hope so, since Adolf hasn't been alive since 1945.

I was pretty annoyed that Time Magazine wimped out on naming bin Laden as Man of the Year in 2001. The criterion are supposed to be:

Since 1927, TIME Magazine has chosen a man, woman, or idea that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year.

And obviously that was Bin Laden. Yet they named Giuliani. Who was a good mayor of a big city (I've heard), and but didn't change the WORLD the way bin Laden did. He set the USA's economy and political influence into a tailspin with one day's work, and got GWB re-elected into the bargain. He triggered the invasion of two nations.

If Time wants to give their cover to "Nice American guy of the year", they should change the criterion to say that and not pretend otherwise..

Re:Room on the island?

[qbast]

Top 10? I doubt he breaks top 10000.

Re:Room on the island?

[spire3661]

Ahhh I see you want to measure in Microsoft's and Oracle's. I'll give an example Apple is currenty a 8.0 on the microsoft/oracle scale. The only thing they lack is a real monopoly to hit 10.0. I like the stuff they make, but damn if it isnt a closed loop.

Re:Room on the island?

[RazzleFrog]

I don't doubt that. I've often said that if Hitler had embraced the Jewish people he would most likely have been the first to have the atomic bomb and we'd all be eating schnitzel.

Re:Room on the island?

[Arancaytar]

Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years.

Because bin Laden killed thousands of Americans, whereas Hitler only killed a few million Jews?

(Ignoring that Hitler lost the Evilest Guy Alive position eight years before Osama bin Laden was born.)

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be tweeting and celebrating only when the tide of intolerance, and evil fanaticism is eradicated totally, and myself and my family can look forward to living free in a world where we do not have to fear that a person is plotting to kill me, just because my views of life and liberty is different to theirs.

That's not why they want to kill you, they want to kill you because you do not believe in the same religion they do.

To be more precise, they want to kill everyone who does not believe as fervently as they do in the same interpretation of their religion.

Citation needed. Most informed sources point to western support for the dictators who run governments in the middle east, with religion used as a rallying cry.

If you don't understand a problem, your only hope of solving it is dumb luck. Bin Laden and friends are a big problem. The gross oversimplification you present is dangerous, because it leads people to the wrong answers on issues like support for some middle eastern governments.

You might argue that experts in the government know and understand the issues. In a democracy these leaders have to stand for election. A population who demands a bad response to this issue is likely to get what they ask for.

Re:Room on the island?

[Vaphell]

add the US constitution to that list

Re:Room on the island?

[slapout]

Time magazine doesn't even know what "influential" means

Re:Room on the island?

[StikyPad]

It's weird that you seem to have someone watching what you type and providing realtime feedback. Is that like an AI, or just a really bored, well-informed homeless person?

Re:Room on the island?

[chebucto]

I don't like to confuse Bush's idiotic wars with Bin Laden's criminality.

Bush was a fool who wasted blood and treasure, as they like to say.

September 11th was a massive crime and it is a huge relief to see justice done. I'd have preferred an arrest & trial but what's happened will have to do.

Re:Room on the island?

[jshackney]

You can apply a similar trick to just about any ne'er do well from history:

Pablo Escobar comes to mind. If he hadn't killed so many people he would've been remembered as a great philanthropist and humanitarian for all the great things he did for his countrymen.

Re:Room on the island?

[Hatta]

Why? What's the significant difference?

Re:Room on the island?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like to confuse the two because they're different things. The particulars are very different, in intent, scale, and context, so I don't see that kind of comparison as terribly useful, at least as far as a consideration of justice goes. Going by body count alone is a gross simplification and, honestly, distortion of reality. For example, a body count doesn't consider intent.

More basically, I don't like to confuse the two because bringing Bin Laden to justice was always a good thing to do, no matter how badly Bush screwed up. Bush's idiocy and malevolence does nothing whatsoever to change Bin Laden's criminality.

Maybe one day Bush will be brought to account for his crimes, but today we get to celebrate Bin Laden coming to justice.

Re:Room on the island?

[chebucto]

Sorry, the above post ("I don't like to confuse the two...") is mine, I just wasn't signed in at the time of posting.

Re:Room on the island?

[lgw]

I've heard that 1937 line before, but many of his progressive achievements came after that. He hadn't done all that much by 37.

His problem (stateman-wise) was that he ran out of other people's money quickly. His early moves against the Jews were focused on the state stealing money to keep his programs going - pogroms for programs, so to speak. Of course, making the Jews ineligible for all the social programs gave him another year as well. His social programs led directly to his place in the history books, I think.

Re:Room on the island?

[calderra]

Another phrasing: Remind me how many hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered by our armed forces since 9/11, versus how many people were actually killed in the attacks? We've done more damage to the Middle East (and ourselves) than they did to us.

Re:Room on the island?

[MimeticLie]

While US military action has caused the deaths of many civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, insurgent activities have caused even more civilian deaths. Based on this data from last year in Afghanistan, they're responsible for 3/4 of the civilian casualties.

Terrorism hurts everyone. Bin Laden's death is a victory for the entire world.

Re:Room on the island?

[silanea]

Victory? What victory? Tell me, what have we won? What good comes from Bin Laden's death?

Re:Room on the island?

[BlackSnake112]

Are you really trying to say that the US killed thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or are you lumping the deaths from the terrorist groups as deaths caused by the US? Has the US killed civilian people? Yes the US has. Was it done on purpose, no. Are the bombs set off by terrorists trying to kill civilian people, yes. Was it done on purpose, yes. If you can't see that, you don't understand that your being irrational.

Re:Room on the island?

[Archangel Michael]

60% of U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan Have Occurred Since Obama Was Inaugurated in 2009.

Funny thing about reporting, it says as much as what is reported, as what is excluded by reports. AntiWar is just Anti (R) war, not the current (D) wars, including the new one in Libya.

http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx

At the current rate of increasing deaths in Afghanistan, Obama will surpass GWB by the time the 2012 elections come and he is either re-elected or we have President Trump (or worse, Palin). Stop reporting about a war and diminishing death rate, and start reporting the other war and the ALARMINGLY increasing death rate under Obama.

Re:Room on the island?

[SilentStaid]

Do me a favor - go to the Korengal valley and find your typical civilian there who is caught between two !foreign! forces fighting in his home and explain to him that we're the good guys because we only killed some of his friends and family by mistake.

... it's not fun, you know.

Re:Room on the island?

[bstender]

Bin Laden is only responsible for the deaths of around 3000 Americans.

allegedly.



.

That's great

[memnock]

if you think the source is reliable and expert enough to really give you news. Given that there was an article on the front page about how people find the news they want, I don't know if Twitter gets around that same problem.

Re:That's great

[clang_jangle]

I found the opening statement of TFS ("Twitter has been a source of breaking news...") kind of shocking. Does no-one read well enough to recognize a fluff piece from marketing when they see one, or do we just not care anymore?

Re:That's great

[Nerdfest]

There was a swell of info on Twitter at least 20 minutes before it appeared anywhere else in any volume. It may not be correct, accurate, or complete, but you get news on Twitter very fast.

Re:That's great

[memnock]

I think if it's not meeting the criteria you just mentioned, it makes Twitter useless as a news source. That combined with point made by clang_jangle point to the fact that this article is polish for a turd.

Re:That's great

[Nerdfest]

Those same failings (not correct, accurate, or complete) exist in all other news sources, just to different degrees. I think Twitter has some value as a news source; you just need to be aware of its shortcomings.

Re:That's great

[Just Some Guy]

I think if it's not meeting the criteria you just mentioned, it makes Twitter useless as a news source.

Not in the slightest. I first read about OBL's death on Twitter. I didn't take that as authoritative information, but it brought the news to my attention so I could learn more about it elsewhere.

Twitter is useless as a news source in exactly the same way Wikipedia is useless as an information source. You don't want to cite either one in a formal article, but both can give you good pointers to primary sources you can pursue further.

Re:That's great

[D. M. Domini]

Exactly this. Twitter *can't* be a thorough main news source for many things with a limit of 140 characters...BUT it can give you a very basic fact...such as "bin Laden is dead"...and prompt you to go looking for more. I got my first "news" of his death from Twitter.

This said, in certain narrow scopes and topics, if you follow the right people, twitter can be a breaking news source with info you can't find elsewhere. I'm a big SF&F reader, and would-be writer, and I follow many authors, agents, publishing houses, and editors. These are the types of people a journalist would contact to get "news", but instead of it filtering through the journalist, it comes right from them to me. I'll often see one of these people tweet about things before it hits the "official" blogs. And with some tweets, nobody follows up with a full blog post anywhere...a tweet is what you get. But it's interesting information, all the same, and more relevant to me and my interests than the big news sites.

Re:That's great

[memnock]

I could tweet that Obama had a major heart attack and Biden is now running things, even though it didn't happen. Are people going to spend time verifying that? If so, how is having to decide if Twitter is delivering legitimate news or not a useful service? If you're getting tweets from Washington Post or a creditable news source, then Twitter isn't doing anything that a smart phone or the tv doesn't already do.

Re:That's great

[Just Some Guy]

I could tweet that Obama had a major heart attack and Biden is now running things, even though it didn't happen. Are people going to spend time verifying that?

You usually don't have to because someone else will follow up to real stories with linked articles from more mainstream sources. I went from seeing "Osama is dead!" to "Here's a link to CNN: ..." in about 2 minutes.

If you're getting tweets from Washington Post or a creditable news source, then Twitter isn't doing anything that a smart phone or the tv doesn't already do.

I don't want to check a bunch of news sites or watch TV constantly, for much the same reason that I'd rather chat around the office water cooler than do either of those things. There are other considerations, like the fact that I heard from several friends (none of whom knew each other) about a minor earthquake in their city well before it was reported.

Inconceivable!

[Drakkenmensch]

It took the death of the most hated man alive to finally put an end to the supremacy of Justin Beiber tweets.

Re:Inconceivable!

[L4t3r4lu5]

It took the death of the most hated man alive to finally put an end to the supremacy of Justin Beiber tweets.

Beiber would still be top. The tense would just change from present to past.

Re:Inconceivable!

[mangu]

It took the death of the most hated man alive

What? Justin Bieber died?

Re:Inconceivable!

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Yeah, but some dumbasses started throwing eggs at Bieber, and Bin Laden was instantly old news.

Re:Inconceivable!

[Joce640k]

Yeah...but it means Justin Beiber takes over as the most hated man alive. Do you really want that...?

(nb. I use the word 'man' in the anthropological sense of the word)

Re:Inconceivable!

[Chris Mattern]

But Justin Beiber's not dead...

Re:Inconceivable!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bierber died! RT @mangu: Justin Bieber died - #bieber #death #fevercured

Re:Inconceivable!

[Anonymous Coward]

It took the death of the most hated man alive

What? Justin Bieber died?

What? Justin Bieber is a man?

Re:Inconceivable!

[drosboro]

Crap... Tried to moderate "insightful", accidentally got "redundant". Undoing...

Re:Inconceivable!

[delinear]

Yeah...but it means Justin Beiber takes over as the most hated man alive. Do you really want that...?

I dunno, does it mean the US will now spend trillions of dollars ensuring his demise? I'm kind of... yeah, I think I'm good with that. Not thrilled about the timescales if it means we have to put up with him for another decade, mind.

Re:Inconceivable!

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "most hated MAN".

Re:Inconceivable!

[jo42]

What? Justin Bieber died?

"The only good Bieber is a dead Bieber.

  - MJ"

Re:Inconceivable!

[Drakkenmensch]

On one hand, it's worth spending the money to be rid of Bieber. On the other hand, for every Bieber we take down, ten Veronica Blacks will rise!!!

Re:Inconceivable!

[Anonymous Coward]

It took the death of the most hated man alive

What? Justin Bieber died?

he did say "man"...

Old and Wrong

[theonesandtwos]

As of Monday CNN was reporting over 5000 tweets/sec at it's peak. Today is Tuesday. Why is information from Sunday being used? Why can't up to date articles be used around here?

Re:Old and Wrong

[delinear]

You'll get Monday's old data in Wednesday's dupe story. You must be new here.

What about here at Slashdot?

[ThePromenader]

There were an amazing amount of comments here in the first thread about Bin Laden's death... ~2000? What's the record at /.?

Re:What about here at Slashdot?

[AlphaBlade]

From the bottom of the page: http://slashdot.org/hof.shtml

Looks like a story about Kerry vs. Bush is the current comment champ.

Re:What about here at Slashdot?

[alexhs]

What's the record at /.?

/.'s hall of fame

Re:What about here at Slashdot?

[Hadlock]

I saw quite a few forums roll over and die sunday night, which was an impressive feat. Facebook didn't slow down (for me) but it was impressive nonetheless for what amounted to bedtime for most americans.

Re:First Trout!

[Anonymous Coward]

Third bass!

Not even close to a record and inaccurate number

[Anonymous Coward]

According to CNET it was 4K/s and not even close to being the record

"Twitter traffic spiked to more than 4,000 tweets per second at the beginning and end of President Obama's speech tonight announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden,"

"it's well short of the 6,939 tweets per second ushering in the new year in Japan"

I've seen better

[Freaky Spook]

Osama Bin Laden may be dead, but without Ewoks & a John Williams music score to celebrate this mighty victory with, it feels kind of empty.

Re:I've seen better

[Black Parrot]

Osama Bin Laden may be dead, but without Ewoks & a John Williams music score to celebrate this mighty victory with, it feels kind of empty.

Darth Vader died with redemption. OBL just got nailed. Nor orchestra or dancing naked Ewoks are called for.

Re:I've seen better

[Anonymous Coward]

That will be Thursday when Obama visits New York City for the victory march.

Death and an election

[Chonnawonga]

There was also a Canadian federal election yesterday, with many surprising results which were all reported in this exact time slot. I know that's not as exciting as a bunch of commandos shooting a guy, but if we're going to talk facts, let's get them straight.

Re:Not even close to a record and inaccurate numbe

[nedlohs]

So you don't know what the word "sustained" means. Congrats.

Bin Laden's dead alright

[advocate_one]

the last thing they wanted was him being taken alive and blabbing some real truths in front of people not cleared for the deep sh1t

Re:Bin Laden's dead alright

[RazzleFrog]

What exactly was stopping him before? I mean he regularly put out videos to sources that couldn't easily be controlled by the US Government. If he has some grand secret to release that would hurt the US then why wouldn't he have already used it?

Re:Bin Laden's dead alright

[Anonymous Coward]

So... What do you think insurance.aes256 contains?

Re:Bin Laden's dead alright

[Anonymous Coward]

the last thing they wanted was him being taken alive and blabbing some real truths in front of people not cleared for the deep sh1t

Tinfoil hat a little tight this morning?

Re:Bin Laden's dead alright

[delinear]

I suspect his "secret" isn't really a secret, it's just how close his ties to the West were before the relationship soured. The reason he didn't talk about this prior to his death is that it was mutually embarassing. If he was captured, he'd have little to lose in reminding us that we're the ones who trained him and set him loose on the world, while it would still be potentially embarassing to our governments to have several days of that blazoned across every newspaper.

Re:Bin Laden's dead alright

[gangien]

if past wikileaks leaks hints at much, i'd say not a whole lot.

Twitter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone really use Twitter? I hear a lot about it in the media, and attention whore celebrity types seem to love it, but no-one I know, and I know quite a few people, use it. Not one. Are there really that many users, or is is just a very loud minority?

Doesn't Count Though

[Greyfox]

Because the guy who files the TPS reports didn't use the new cover sheet.

Tweets-per-second

[fleeped]

.. for the same piece of news, feels like a measure of the redundancy of the network's data traffic.

Re:First Trout!

[Anonymous Coward]

Forth flounder!

Who cares

[defaria]

Who cares.

Re:Who cares

[_0xd0ad]

You'll be pleased to learn that we're currently on pace to set the record for Slashdot as well. Thanks for your help.

Re:First Trout!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect fifth!

(get it - it's a musical term - because bass has a double meaning - ah, screw it, I'm trying way too hard.)

Not twitter, but first comment I saw on 4chan...

[cobrausn]

Counter-Terrorists Win!

In other news...

[Black Parrot]

OBL's death generates 27 tangential Slashdot stories.

3000 per second? LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that it? 3000 per second? And Twitter was/is having performance issues all the time. LOL

My services can do 20000 transactions per second, per server, per core. I guess I have gone a bit overboard when tweaking for performance if a "popular" site like Twitter has record numbers of only 3000 transactions per second.

Most web developers and web admins must be idiots.

Re:3000 per second? LOL

[_0xd0ad]

My services can do 20000 transactions per second, per server, per core. - by Anonymous Coward

That's nothing - I can ignore all ten billion people in the world simultaneously in no time at all.

Go ahead, test me - there's a "Reply to This" button beneath my post.

Tweets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't they be called twits?

Re:First Trout!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sixth sturgeon!

Good thing that Twitter has 3,000 servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Then it is a good thing that Twitter has 3,000 servers so they could each handle the 1 tweet/sec load!

I'm not saying that Ruby is slow, but ...
we are only talking about 140 characters and a single TCP packet is 1500 characters.

correction

[mr100percent]

The article says 5000 per second by the time Obama finished his speech

Twitter has rarely been a source of breaking news

[Zouden]

And the death of bin Laden is no exception. Those 3000 tweets/second are not carrying "breaking news" of any kind; they are people making jokes, political talking-points or simply repeating rumours and hearsay. Even the article states that most of the tweets came after the news appeared on TV.

Fact is, the overwhelming majority of people on twitter have no first-hand experience of the event, and those that do have first-hand experience are not about to leak any details of it. All the good information is collected on websites like the BBC, not on Twitter, so if I want news, I'll stick with a proper news source.

And, how much traffic meant *anything*?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Millions of wanna-be reality stars tweeting every banality. Hell, even the so-called live-tweeting was just a resident complaining about chopper noise.

Hi, I'm Bin Laden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hihi, I'm Bin Laden. I was able getting a AOL internet connection. As expected, they work better here than on earth.

Re:Hi, I'm Bin Laden.

[_0xd0ad]

What, did hell freeze over?

Re:Hi, I'm Bin Laden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, this is Bin Laden again. Yes, hell is frozen. We seem to be suffering from global cooling.

Re:Hi, I'm Bin Laden.

[_0xd0ad]

My fault, actually - for a while now instead of "when hell freezes over" I've been saying "when they get bin Laden." Please convey my apologies to the rest of the people down there - I wouldn't wish AOL on even my worst enemy.

Re:Hi, I'm Bin Laden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, this is Bin Laden again. Can someone please kill Justin Beiber so he can come over here? I'm in the mood for some lovin' tonight.

Re:Hi, I'm Bin Laden.

[_0xd0ad]

What's the matter - short on virgins?

Not too shabby either

[Anonymous Coward]

http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/326248972 Complete with music.....

[citation provided]

[mangu]

To be more precise, they want to kill everyone who does not believe as fervently as they do in the same interpretation of their religion.

Citation needed.

OK, here it is.

Sometimes you need to read a bit more than the huffpost in order to broaden your point of view. That "western support for the dictators who run governments in the middle east" line is a bit tired, don't you think? Could you ([citation needed], of course) point out which "western" governments support the dictatorships of Syria, Iran, and Gaza?

It's truly ironic how someone can talk about "gross oversimplification" in the same sentence they talk about "western support" for dictatorships.

Inception

[Anonymous Coward]

"Twitter has been a source of breaking news since its inception five years ago"

Don't say that word or I'll retweet the tweet my neighbor retweeted after his boss retweeted the tweet he retweeted...

I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

They wouldn't have liked the idea of him being alive, because the chance of him saying something to raise any kind of doubts or portray himself as a non-monster would have presented itself.

Burn in Hell Bin Laden!

[Anonymous Coward]

America, FUCK YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother fucking day yeah,
America, FUCK YEAH!
Freedom is the only way yeah,
Terrorist your game is through cause now you have to answer to,
America, FUCK YEAH!
So lick my butt, and suck on my balls,
America, FUCK YEAH!
What you going to do when we come for you now,
it's the dream that we all share; it's the hope for tomorrow

FUCK YEAH!

McDonalds, FUCK YEAH!
Wal-Mart, FUCK YEAH!
The Gap, FUCK YEAH!
Baseball, FUCK YEAH!
NFL, FUCK, YEAH!
Rock and roll, FUCK YEAH!
The Internet, FUCK YEAH!
Twitter, FUCK YEAH!

FUCK YEAH!

Starbucks, FUCK YEAH!
Disney world, FUCK YEAH!
Porno, FUCK YEAH!
Valium, FUCK YEAH!
Reeboks, FUCK YEAH!
Fake Tits, FUCK YEAH!
Sushi, FUCK YEAH!
Taco Bell, FUCK YEAH!
Rodeos, FUCK YEAH!
Bed bath and beyond (Fuck yeah, Fuck yeah)

Liberty, FUCK YEAH!
White Slips, FUCK YEAH!
The Alamo, FUCK YEAH!
Band-aids, FUCK YEAH!
Las Vegas, FUCK YEAH!
Christmas, FUCK YEAH!
Immigrants, FUCK YEAH!
Popeye, FUCK YEAH!
Democrats, FUCK YEAH!
Republicans (republicans)
(fuck yeah, fuck yeah)
Sportsmanship
Books

I'll be here all week....

[Anonymous Coward]

Q:You know what the first thing they found on Bin Laden's computer was?
A:His brains!

Please tip your waiters and try the fish.

Re:First Trout!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seventh your mom.

I'm sure 95% of the tweets said:

[Anonymous Coward]

AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!

Retracted

[mattack2]

I saw this retracted on World News Now this morning. They mentioned another event getting around 5500 tweets/minute. I think it was the Japan quake.

Re:First Trout!

[obergfellja]

I am a walrus!

Opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

When does the movie come out?

The Humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first heard about the death of Bin Laden, I thought of this quote from the darkknight:

The Joker: Don't talk like you're one of them! You're not... even if you'd like to be. To them you're just a freak, like me. They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their "code"... it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these uh, these "civilized people", they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.

I see it relating to the way that the standard American moralistic mantra of "everyone deserves a fair trial" is thrown out the window when the choice has been made to rationalise a murder.

Re:Twitter has rarely been a source of breaking ne

[coolmadsi]

All the good information is collected on websites like the BBC, not on Twitter, so if I want news, I'll stick with a proper news source.

A lot of people would have first heard about it from twitter (or another social network), and then gone to a proper news source for conformation and actual details. I guess thats the point of this story (if there is a point to it, apart from how much the network can handle at once)

Here's what really happened

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.infowars.com/top-us-government-insider-bin-laden-died-in-2001-911-a-false-flag/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/inside-sources-bin-ladens-corpse-has-been-on-ice-for-nearly-a-decade.html

If you do a little research, it quickly becomes apparent that the US government has proclaimed Osama to be dead no less than 9 times. Witnesses are now appearing that indicate that Osama has been dead for almost 10 years. This announcement is just a stunt to get Obama's tanking popularity back up in preparation for 2012.

Wow, Twitter Is Small

[Anonymous Coward]

So 3,000 tweets per second, 215 minutes, that's 645,000 tweets total. So even if you didn't have tons of people tweeting over and over and over and over you would have had 0.1% of the world population (roughly) tweeting. And that is when the whole hive that is earth has been kicked and we're all buzzing about.

Only 3000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is twitter really only topping out at 3000 updates per second? How on earth can they have such bad reliability and performance issues if they are only dealing with this tiny amount of info?

With the financial data I deal with there can be hundreds of thousands of updates per second.