#trafigura – catch it while you can
You may well know about the case last week of The Guardian versus oil trader Trafigura. The Guardian has been running a campaign against Trafigura concerning dumping toxic waste in west Africa. Trafigura has been very active in using legal means to prevent information about this spreading – including obtaining an injunction preventing The Guardian from reporting a question rasied on the issue in Parliament. However, the information leaked / spread via social media, Twitter in particular, and the injunction was lifted.
My point is that this little piece of history – i.e. the visibility of the #trafigura tag on which most of the action took place – will only last for a couple of weeks and then it will be gone. This is because Twitter only keeps content in tags visible for this period. I think this is a serious problem – see Twitter is making then destroying history.
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