On #OccupyBoston, Occupy Boston, and Twitter’s Trending Topics Algorithm
The ongoing saga of Twitter’s trending topics’ relationship to activists got new datapoint in the wake of the arrest of a hundred Occupy Boston demonstrators late last night — the phrase “Occupy Boston” trended globally for a while this morning, while #OccupyBoston, with three times the total traffic, did not.
What’s curious about this is the fact that the trendlines for Occupy Boston and #OccupyBoston were quite similar before last night’s surge. In fact, the two terms rose almost exactly in sync yesterday until #OccupyBoston shot up as the arrests began after midnight. Now, #OccupyBoston had seen more traffic in previous days, but those raw numbers were tiny, and I don’t think they explain the failure of the tag to trend. Rather, I think the after-midnight spike holds the answer.
Why did #OccupyBoston spike so heavily as the arrests took place? Because of intensive, concerted efforts by
