Twitter wages war against Justin Bieber

The “wisdom of the crowd” is not always wise or witty. Sometimes, it’s just plain hormone-induced and the tweenagers over at Twitter say so. That’s the reason teen-idol Justin Bieber has been on the top of Twitter Trending Topics for like ages.

Bieber’s popularity has invaded the Twitterverse and it will be there for good, what with thousands of fans posting about him every second. Even the King of Twitter, @aplusk, could not displace the young Prince of the Twitterverse. That’s if Twitter can’t do anything about it.

So the other day, Twitter made a bit of change in their algorithm:

The new algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the â€˜most breakingâ€™ breaking news from across the world. (We had previously built in this â€˜emergentâ€™ algorithm for all local trends, described below.) We think that trending topics which capture the hottest emerging trends and topics of discussion on Twitter are the most interesting. {via Mashable}

In short, if a topic is so popular that it constantly trends, Twitter will drop it from the list.

For ordinary people, there wasn’t any noticeable different on the Trending Topics — except the Bieber fans. Suddenly, no more Justin Bieber on the Trending Topics, as if Twitter put a permanent ban on the name for good.

Frustrated, thousands of tweeple requested @twitter to un-ban Bieber and allow him to trend again. All that went to deft ears. Despite that, the “wisdom of the so-called crowd” somewhat found a way around or is trying to. Instead of the real name, followers started using and/or hi-jacking hash tags — they temporarily gained traction within hours by using tags such as #pattiesson, #jayb and #LetBieberTrend.

We’re not sure who will win this battle but Bieber fans aren’t gonna give up easily. That’s until Twitter comes up with a another algo change.

Update: That didn’t take too long — jieber and twibier are trending on Twitter.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

16 Comments

RaGe Einzeln says:

14 years ago

oh God -__-
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karen says:

14 years ago

there are other people dont like justin bieber
and other like him just like me
i really inspire hes talent
the reason why other people dont like him is because they are just jelouse cause they dont have a great talent like justin bieber

love ya justin
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karen says:

14 years ago

love ya
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Fleeb says:

15 years ago

I fondly remembered PCOSMachine tried helping putting out Bieber as a trending topic. :D
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Tom says:

15 years ago

So there is no democracy in Twitter…
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jandi says:

15 years ago

hi justin bieber
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Teknisyan says:

15 years ago

justin beiber?! is he the brother of justin timberlake? jejejej

j/k ;)
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obed says:

15 years ago

i can’t relate..
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_arieL says:

15 years ago

lol. finally.
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Jam. says:

15 years ago

Oh look twitter!, twieber & Jieber is trending! Damn.
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Jam. says:

15 years ago

At last!, nice move twitter!
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blankPixels says:

15 years ago

Finally! *LOL* I tried checking the tweets on him and most were nonsense.
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dannybuntu says:

15 years ago

It’s not simply a viral trend by teens. You have to factor in the marketing push that they’re making for the kid. It’s a coordinated commercial effort that is backed by big money.

Twitter is right in implementing the new algorithms so that the spammers can be held at bay.

Spamming is going to be one of twitter’s long term problems.
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blitzkrieg says:

15 years ago

Why do we have to put up with stupid stuff from the legions of lonely, obsessed, and emotionally unstable pre-teens and teens? It’s about time Twitter did something about that menace. If sissy girl Bieber is going to trend, then it has to be for a reason, not because the legion of morons tweet about “how much they love” Bieber.
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