[governance] Wikileaks - ISOC

[Katitza Rodriguez]

Hi

Twitter is not blocking. They change they algorithm many time ago. A
good tech and data analysis explanation is available here: 

#WikiLeaks & Twitter Trending Topics: Manual Interference or Algorithms
as Usual?
http://opennet.net/blog/2010/12/wikileaks-twitter-trending-topics-manual-interference-or-algorithms-usual

"the problem with claiming that Twitter is blacklisting any particular
term ultimately comes down to a likely misunderstanding of the mechanics
behind trending terms. Volume alone does not dictate what is trending -
if that were the case, barring any stop-word list, we would see terms
like “lol” and “Bieber” constantly trending, and, ultimately, the lack
of churn in trending topics would make them a useless feature on the
site. For this reason, the likely major component is the velocity of
volume rather than volume itself (the algorithm itself is not publicly
known)."

".... perhaps the Wikileaks story should have been trending, and
perhaps the algorithm is due for some form of an overhaul to balance the
needs of Twitter the company and Twitter the communications platform.
The situation, then, is not whether or not Wikileaks is being
discriminated against, but whether or not we value that algorithmic
discrimination as users."



On Thu, 9 Dec 2010 16:00:05 +0800, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
wrote:
> On 09/12/2010, at 2:53 PM, Ian Peter wrote:
> 
> So far we have seen everydns, mastercard, amazon and paypal cave in to
> political pressure, although there is no legal action against
> wikileaks, let alone a successful one. On the other hand, ISOC (and
> presumably PIR) and Facebook of all bedfellows have stood firmly on
> the side of a free Internet.
> 
> and Twitter.
> 
> I think an IGC statement on this issue would be useful! 
> 
> Do we want to say "we support Wikileaks" or do we want to say "we
> disapprove of the (lack of) process that has been followed in dealing
> with Wikileaks, and we think that a set of principles should be
> democratically developed to guide public and private responses in
> future similar circumstances"? Whilst I personally support Wikileaks,
> I think that the latter approach is more within the IGC's area of core
> competence, and would also distinguish our statement better from those
> of free speech groups et al.

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