After the latest change in Twitter, you may or may not have noticed that the trend feed is a bit different as in “WTF is this shit even in my results?”
I keep mine in Venezuela as to check the latest down there, but for the last several days although it is still set for it, I am getting results I know do not fit with what usually comes out from down there:
I doubt pretty much anybody down there cares about the shooting at Pearl Harbor, knows what Fake Outrage is (language and all) and could not give to craps about Pelosi.
I went ahead and checked other countries’ trends and according to Twitter, the whole planet is pretty much talking about the same thing:
Trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location. This algorithm identifies topics that are popular now, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter.
Bolds are mine. Help me? I am always suspicious when my information feed is being “helped” by people I do not know and the outcome is the disappearance of such information.
You can choose to see trends that are not tailored for you by selecting a specific trends location on twitter.com, iOS, or Android (instructions below). Location trends identify popular topics among people in a specific geographic location.
Well little one, that ain’t happening, is it? I am sure that the connotation of “ass” in three of the four countries above is not an expression of disbelief but a pack animal and very likely not the top five of their Twitter discussions. Now I cannot even believe what is being shown “trending” in my particular location is truthful because as much as I may like Egypt and its history, I doubt Miami and El Cairo have the same similar concerns this morning.
But no, we are not being informational manipulated for upcoming elections. Trust Without Verify.
UPDATE: I sent a notification to @TwitterHelp and my trends are back to normal. I guess somebody forgot to flip a switch after the last update. I can no keep track of the triumph of Socialism in Venezuela over the evil US Empire…or crap like that.
The laughably & erroneously-labeled ‘Social Media’ is not manipulating information for political gain. Do not look behind the curtains, you peasants. /sarc
“Trust Without Verify.”
Pretty much what the sheeple are bleating as they’re led to the slaughter in the leftards abattoir of political correctness & nixed rights.
Actually, I think the important part of the According to Twitter is:
“Trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location….Trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location.”
In other words, you are going to see the same trends, regardless of what country you are looking at. In fact, you are not actually getting an accurate representation of what is trending in the US. What Twitter is providing is a list of stuff you are interested in. Nothing more.
Interesting. You could test the “it’s all about location” hypothesis by using one of the free VPN services to make you appear to be in some other country. I’ve used “hidemyass.com” which seems to have dropped their free option except as a trial, but that may be ok. There may also be others like this, I haven’t looked.
Another option would be to use TOR to access Twitter. That doesn’t let you steer the accesses via a specific country; instead, it picks a path and tells you what it is. Much of the time you end up getting routed through some server in a European country.
BTW, TOR is nice for other reasons as well, if you want to access web sites without revealing information about yourself, or if you want to access a web site that you normally aren’t allowed to access.
Interesting, I’ve checked it myself through twitter with a VPN (NordVPN) and it shows different things. Before doing this, have you tried deleting your cache?? it would help I think, because it saves the information (your location, history, etc and it tailors the algorithm accordingly)