Thread: Anonymous 'URGE' Program Hijacks Twitter's Trending Topics

Though Twitter's trending topics sometimes inform users of breaking news, the list is often littered with phrases or hashtags that are puzzling or just plain stupid. Right now, for example, #wifeymaterial tops the list.

But while most of us probably don't consider the content of these trending topics to be a major problem that needs solving, hacker group Anonymous thinks otherwise. The organization announced this week that it has developed a program that "hijacks trending topics of our choice and ... lets us tweet messages within them."

Anonymous said it was "tired of seeing trending topics on twitter that were redundant and 'pop culture' like." (No Bieber fans in Anonymous?) Organizers said they also grew tired "of Twitter not trending hash tags that actually serve a cause and mean something to free thinkers of the world."

The group accused Twitter of only showcasing trending topics that appeal to users in an effort to get them to tweet more, which Anonymous said was "pathetic."

In response, Anonymous developed a program called "U.R.G.E. Universal Rapid Gamma Emitter (twitter edition)," which it says allows for the trending topics hijack. "This will help raise awareness of problems going on in this world and show people that real problems exist outside of 'Jersey Shore' and 'Sex,'" Anonymous wrote.

What type of topic does Anonymous deem acceptable? On a new Twitter feed, URGE pushed supporters to promote the #OpBART hashtag, a reference to the group's battle against San Francisco transit officials who cut off wireless access at stations to stop planned protests.

Anonymous pledged to distribute the program amongst Anonymous users, as well as anyone else who wants to raise awareness or bash "corrupt politicians." Anonymous insisted URGE is "not a hacking tool," though; it was "created to make it easier for us to tweet faster without copying and pasting constantly."

A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment directly on the Anonymous program, but pointed to Twitter's rules. Under those guidelines, Anonymous' activities might run afoul of Twitter's rules on impersonation or spam and abuse.

"What constitutes 'spamming' will evolve as we respond to new tricks and tactics by spammers," according to the rules, but at this point, posting multiple unrelated updates to a trending topic or popular topic falls under the "spam" umbrella. As a result, manipulating trending topics would likely be frowned upon. At this point, the @_Urge Twitter feed is still live, however.

This is not the first time Twitter has faced questions about how its trending topics work. Back in December, Wikileaks supporters accused the micro-blogging site of blocking #Wikileaks and #Cablegate from the list, an accusation Twitter denied.

"Twitter favors novelty over popularity," Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner said at the time. "Twitter Trends are automatically generated by an algorithm that attempts to identify topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously."

Twitter introduced its trending topics list in 2008, and at the time, it did include the terms or phrases that were mentioned most often on the site. However, that led to certain phrases—like "Justin Bieber" or "Adam Lambert"—just sitting on the trending topics list for days on end, even if there was no new news about those people. As a result, Twitter changed its trending topics algorithm in May 2010 so that topics hit the trends list "when the volume of tweets about that topic at a given moment dramatically increases."

So, even if millions of teenage girls put #justinbieber at the end of their tweets, the phrase won't necessarily show up on trending topics, particularly if there was something more topical gaining steam on Twitter at that moment.

Regardless of how trending topics are sorted, people are still using the service. Twitter confirmed this week that it now boasts 100 million active users, half of which tweet to the site on a daily basis.

Source

This is all fine and dandy, but those who think Anonymous is on our side are naive. Anonymous isn't on anybody's side and many in their ranks do what they do for the lulz. Furthermore their activities suggest hypocritical behavior. In Deathnote people justified killing people who were incarcerated, police officers doing their jobs, and fbi agents who were only investigating. Kira had a huge following sort of like Anonymous does. But power corrupts. Anonymous may resort to censoring sites that speak against them all the while complaining of censorship. Just as our government supplies terrorists to fight terrorists, we may support hackers with no ethics doing what they do for the lulz and end up their next target.

well i have never liked twitter, it's soo confusing lol

yeah anonymouse is not our enemy nor our freind, but i dont really care what they do, so long they dont try anything funny on the scene

Wonder if they will come back and attack Sony, or maybe they just like hacking.

Originally Posted by ireggae

Wonder if they will come back and attack Sony, or maybe they just like hacking.

yeah they are just Hacking fanboyz, who knows they'll start helpin the scene by releasing something useful, i mean they just love hacking :D