Social networking giant Twitter has revealed the WikiLeaks saga is not trending is because it is not as popular as people may think, and that they have not blocked it as a trending topic.
Twitter released a statement on its blog yesterday, ‘To Trend or not to Trend’, that answers questions over trending and addresses the reasons why the WikiLeaks topic is not on the site.
“Given the widespread confusion about #wikileaks, we’d like to offer a longer explanation of how we measure trends on Twitter, and why some popular topics may not make the list.”
“This week, people are wondering about WikiLeaks, with some asking if Twitter has blocked #wikileaks, #cablegate or other related topics from appearing in the list of top trends.”
“The answer: Absolutely not. In fact, some of these terms, including #wikileaks and #cablegate, have previously trended either worldwide or in specific locations.
The blog announcement aims to show Twitter is not guilty of censoring Tweets regarding the WikiLeaks saga, during a time when credit card companies and the US are calling for the site to be shut down due to alleged illegal activity.
Popularity
“Sometimes a topic doesn’t break into the trends list because its popularity isn’t as widespread as people believe. And, sometimes, popular terms don’t make the trends list because the velocity of conversation isn’t increasing quickly enough, relative to the baseline level of conversation happening on an average day; this is what happened with #wikileaks this week.”
The WikiLeaks saga continues to unfold as the website continues to reveal cables online, despite MasterCard and Visa Europe suspending their accounts, while its founder Julian Assange is under arrest in the UK for alleged sex crimes.
