Freedom of speech vs. freedom to tweet?

Twitter users in the United States were fuming today at the microblogging site and denouncing free speech violations after the Company’s CEO admitted to “editing out” any trending topics containing obscenities. 

Since Twitter gained worldwide notoriety a few years ago, many politically-active users all over the planet have resorted to the site in order to protest against governments, organize demonstrations or denounce human rights violations, a methodology that proved most effective since the international press is quick to pick up on these sorts of stories.

This weekend was no different, since as democrats and republicans continued to stall a bipartisan deal to raise the US borrowing limit and avoid default, frustration among the American population seemed to grow exponentially. 

Liberal journalist Jeff Jarvis, creator of Entertainment Weekly and a contributor for the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Daily News, was one of those angered citizens and, as he saw the ghost of the default lurk around the corner while the US Congress continued to play politics, he decided to vent his anger on Twitter.

After a series of angry tweets that ended with the phrase “Fuck you Washington,” one of his 75,000+ followers suggested that he turns the phrase into a hashtag. 

Hence #fuckyouwashington was born.

“Watching TV news over dinner I listened to the latest from Washington about negotiations over the debt ceiling. It pissed me off. I’d had enough. After dinner, I tweeted: 'Hey, Washington assholes, it’s our country, our economy, our money. Stop fucking with it,” Jarvis explained on his blog, Buzz Machine. 

Soon the tweetosphere was on board, and the irreverent hashtag was soon trending nationally (meaning that it was being mentioned the most in users' tweets) on Saturday night and Sunday.

“I'm tired of paying for rich people when they're getting all the dessert. #fuckyouwashington,” Twitter user @trcfwt complained. 

Another user, @ThomasRHart tweeted “#FuckYouWashington for putting Lincoln on that money you hand out for free to the banks that then use it toenslave us.”

It seemed that Jarvis has struck a chord. 

The hashtag, however, never made it to the top 10 trending list, while #reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend was trending nationwide.

Upset, a woman named Candace Kuss contacted the company’s CEO, Dick Costolo via Twitter, asking how such an offensive hashtag was allowed on the Trending Topics list while the one created by Jarvis was suspiciously nowhere to be seen.

To the surprise of many, Costolo replied that the trends are algorithmic and not chosen by the company, but confirmed that they “edit out” any trends containing obscenities. 

The backlash was immediate.

“It’s scary. Free speech platform? Yeah, right...” tweeted a user named @ jicksta after learning of such a controversial policy.

Costolo’s statement has now prompted blogs around the US to reconsider Twitter as a tool for revolution, and denounce censorship in a site that had recently managed to become a beacon of free speech. 

The question now is how much free speech is too much free speech for Twitter?

In the meantime, the hashtag controversy continues and has many users up in arms. Just like a user named @NaiEve posted: “Come on Twitter. You’re thrilled to be instrument of change in the Middle East but you block #fuckyouwashington from trending? #fuckyoutwitter"