4chan may be behind attack on Twitter
Update: Twitter has reacted to this raid by removing the term from its trending topics, but evidence can still be found on Twitter Search.
Twitter saw a huge influx of fake accounts on Sunday, pushing the NSFW trending topic, #gorillapenis, all the way to the top of the list. Popular image board 4chan /b/, along with other various sites, appears to be behind this latest raid on Twitter. 4chan, a hub of Internet culture and memes, has long been the spawning point of various raids on sites, most recently YouTube Porn Day. Before that, they were responsible for hacking Time Magazine's voting system for the World's Most Influential Person, making the site's creator, moot, the winner by a wide margin.
A set of instructions for the raid on Twitter.
(Credit: Insurgency Wiki)They are calling this latest effort "Operation Shitter." As you can see in the instruction set image, the blame is trying to be laid on Ebaum's World, which is, as far as we can tell, not involved in the raid. Blaming things on Ebaum's World is sort of a tradition on 4chan. A wiki (with information now pulled) was also formed to give instructions on how to systematically game Twitter's trending topics. The wiki suggests that raiders use a script, written by them, to spam the hashtag.
A similar NSFW trending topic on the subject of Mollie Sugden also sprung up recently after her death. While I'm not for censoring people by any means, when attacks like this pop up, Twitter has to have a better detection mechanism in place, ready to deal with it, especially as Twitter gets more and more mainstream attention.
Harrison Hoffman is a tech enthusiast and co-founder of LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
and mashable http://mashable.com/2009/07/02/spam-twitter-trends/
It was a tribute from her fans and was a fun mark of respect to a much loved British comedy actress.
I agree Twitter has to have a better detection mechanism in place to deal with it, not just to stop the bad stuff but to not label legitimate topics as spam.
maybe they should just turn it off ?
oh right you are of no consequence whatsoever.
no one would even notice
4chan.org had nothing to do with this. We don't do stuff like this. We have standards and this is so lowbrow. We always get blamed for ebaumsworld shenanigans and I, for one, would like to see their leader, Eric Bauman, answer for this kind of criminal activity and besmirching moot's good name.
moot is an innovator -he was rated the most influental person in the world according to Time magazine- and he doesn't deserve this black mark on his reputation. moot does not tolerate 'raids' such as this on his site, on this he has been very clear. And the overwhelming majority of his userbase don't condone this kind of bahaviour either for that matter.
I'm an upstanding adult citizen in lawl enforcement and I wouldn't be caught dead with these clowns from ebaums.
As for moot being an innovator, I'm not sure, he has certainly made one of the most...ummmm...unique sites on the internet, but I don't know if that is innovation or if he just lets anyone post whatever they like anonymously and that in itself has created the interesting crowd of idiots that frequent 4chan. Oh and I wonder how he could have POSSIBLY made him the most influential person of 2009? Hmmmmm... I imagine it wen't something like this...
Forum: /b/
Posted by: SomeAnonLoserOn4Chan
1. Goto (link to time magazine polls)
2. Vote for moot
3. ???
4. PROFIT?
Seriously guys shove off. 4chans' escapades were funny the first time. No longer.
Notice I didn't say every member is retarded. However, look at what company you keep.
Please do more stories about them!
Quite how you've managed to conflate this with a supposed 'attack' on Twitter by /b/tards, I'm at something of a loss to fathom...
www.seriall.com
If you look at the cover story on thedge you'll see a more in depth report about this. Scroll about half way down on seriall and there's an interview with someone who helped get this thing rolling.
Cheers!
- by hatmon July 6, 2009 2:20 AM PDT
- I can't imagine why Americans should take offence at mention of an old lady's pet cat.
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- by caroline.mccarthy July 6, 2009 6:16 AM PDT
- I thought that trending topic was hilarious. I used to watch that show when it was in reruns on PBS, but most people in the U.S. are totally unfamiliar with it and wouldn't get the reference in the Twitter hashtag at all. There is a great montage of all the best Mrs. Slocombe moments on YouTube, FYI.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (74 Comments)This is interesting for Twitter -- it's a global phenomenon, what happens if there's a trending topic that's innocuous in one region but offensive in another?