A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Twitter and the Flotilla

The Arabist has some interesting and perhaps suggestive data about Twitter, its "Trending" feature, and the word "flotilla," raising questions about whether "flotilla" posts aren't being counted towards trending, or some technical glitch is at work.

Now, part of me quibbles that six ships do not a flotilla make, but since the media has decided that's how we refer to the aid convoy (it's much more a convoy than a flotilla, and the word is less military to boot) I'll use it here.

Frankly, this is probably one of those cases where the axiom that you should "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" kicks in. But it does raise questions.

1 comment:

Chris Yount said...

If we're going to start re-naming things, should we consider taking it a step further can start calling the group of ships the "blockade runners"?

Members of the group have stated over and over that the breaking of the blockage, not delivery of aid, was their primary objective.