I am disgusted by the "twitterati" in this case. What happened off the coast of Gaza is likely to very significant, and "we" get all puffed up yelling bloody censorship over what is very likely to be a technical fluke.

The story is highly publicized in mainstream media. It's wide open. Whoever allegedly decided that censoring a topic from trending on Twitter would matter even the slightest is too stupid to have a job at Twitter with access to do that.

Okay, so that particular word is not in the trending topics. News flash: "Justin Bieber" isn't either, and I'll bet my life that his fans are still tweeting about him. Twitter just released a new trending topic algorithm, and they specifically said that it wouldn't catch every trend.

Seems to be working for me. Here are some tweets:

> jonathanfryer: If Iran not Israel had carried out an attack on aid flotilla, we'd now be at war. Western double standards make me sick.

> Sarabughazal: "your blood reached the shores of Gaza before your aid" #flotilla #freedomflotilla

> aslanmedia: Shocking footage from Al-Jazeera before communication to ships was cut off. http://bit.ly/cZyYYw (expand) #israel #flotilla #gaza

Erhm. Am I not getting something?

It IS in the trending topics: http://imgur.com/QxuqV

Is the story here that they are censoring something or that they are not? Because if it were the latter, I'd be sad. Do we assume that for social networks to censor communications on recent politically grave events is the default now?

Forgive me, but ... what's the relevance of that word? Isn't a flotilla just a bunch of ships? Why would Twitter censor it?

I thought the point isn't that twitter is censoring tweets with the word 'flotilla', but that it's not appearing as a trending topic.

However, both #freedomflotilla and 'Gaza flotilla' are trending right now.

It's not censoring #flotilla search - it IS censoring trending topics. A highly selective, possibly first case, of word censoring. It's also censoring #gaza, #israel along with #flotilla.

This sort of selection is apparently based on an operator action/directives rather than automated one (#israil - Turkish for #isreal is not censored).

Now, this is turning highly political and opinionated as Twitter hasn't previously censored #iran or other politically charged words.

I'm from Turkey which the ships sailed out from. IDF attacked unarmed ships in international waters, They killed about 19 on board and forced the ships into an Israeli port, so far injured is rejecting medical aid from israeli hospitals and medical staff, I'm afraid there can be more loss of life.

It's very sad that they are still manipulating the news and trying to change the world's perpective on the subject.

It's plain and simple, they are actively trying to kill a nation of people, they are attempting genocide, which they should be aware of more then most of the world is the most awful atrocity mankind can inflict.

Support the humanitarian peaceful effort of good people.

God be with them.