The search works for me, but only when I'm signed out. This leads me to believe that this is some sort of technical issue. Besides, I don't think they are stupid enough to do something like censoring this.
Ahh - wait - I see if you search from the main site, it fails for me now too. <a href="http://search.twitter.com" rel="nofollow">http://search.twitter.com</a> works though. Weird. I expect it's due to a some bug/performance failure rather than an intentional censorship. Otherwise search.twitter.com would be censored too.
I just flagged this story. Does that mean an op will review it?<p>I think it's wrong to state that Twitter is censoring, and is harmful. It should have been posted as a question instead.<p>[edit: The poster's reviewed it.]
Headline draws controversial conclusion from incomplete data and should be changed.<p>For example, this could be the result of automated measures to prevent spamming the trending topics gone haywire. Or not. But accusing censorship without knowing the whole story is just hair-trigger indignation.
I note the generally less controversial Stephen Fry is complaining about unrelated Trending Topic oddness this morning, looks like they've screwed up their system somehow and the #flotilla thing is a coincidence. <a href="http://twitter.com/stephenfry/status/15064838816" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/stephenfry/status/15064838816</a>
I don't get the technical error message for #flotilla, but a search on the tag acts like it's being ignored. However, <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23freedomflotilla" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23freedomflotilla</a> is a trending topic and yields results.
I see people here agreeing, but when I visit <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23flotilla" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23flotilla</a> it appears fine?<p>Here's what I see: <a href="http://twitpic.com/1spne4" rel="nofollow">http://twitpic.com/1spne4</a>
It probably tripped an anti-spam filter.
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/may/31/twitter-censoring-flotilla-questions" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/may/31/twitte...</a>
It`s trending in Canada: <a href="http://imgur.com/XaeuJ.png" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/XaeuJ.png</a><p>But wtf? I click it, and I can't access the search?<p>edit: I can report that clicking on #flotilla in trending topics is now functional.
This could be either because:<p>1) Israel is pushing Twitter to censor these terms<p>2) Someone at Twitter HQ blindly supports Israel<p>Either way it completely destroys perhaps the most important usage for Twitter: a voice for those in the epicenter of something happening.