Twitter allows ‘Die Trump’ to trend, sparking outrage
ANDREW WEST
FREEDOMOUTPOST.COM
OCTOBER 8, 2019
Social media is a lightning rod of pop culture, by design, and this applies to the both the good and the bad online.
The common denominator among these platforms is their desire to find what’s trending and amplify it. Their feedback looping algorithms can then weaponize the data harvesting that Facebook and Twitter thrive on, narrowing down what makes us tick, and selling that subconscious sleuthing to advertisers.
This means that apps like Twitter have a vested interest in keeping eyes on them, perhaps even allowing some controversies to slip into the headlines in order to remain “fresh” and maybe a little “dangerous” in the eyes of the users.
Twitter had just one of those controversies this week, after allowing a wicked hashtag to appear in the “trending” tab.
Twitter apologized on Monday for briefly allowing the phrase “Mahvolursun Trump,” which roughly translates as “Die Trump” to trend in Turkey.
“This phrase should not have appeared in trends, and we’re sorry for this mistake. At times, we do prevent certain content from trending and we have now done so with this trend,” a Twitter spokesperson told Breitbart News.
The phrase began to trend after Turkish Twitter users reacted with anger to President Donald Trump’s promise to “totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey” if the country did anything “off-limits” following the U.S. pullout from Northern Syria.
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