Twittering against terrorism

How many tweets will it take till we know, that too many Basque car bombs have exploded?

Published July 30, 2009 3:10PM (EDT)

A few moments ago, I noticed that the "hashtag" #etano was trending upwards in popularity on Twitter. (A hashtag is a quick and simple way to make sure your tweet can be found by anyone searching for that tag.)

Always curious about things I don't understand, (#iranelection and #HarryPotter are also trending up, but I have a pretty good idea what those hashtags signify) I did some nosing around -- and learned that the "eta" is ETA, the Basque separatist group. On Wednesday, the Spanish government blamed ETA for a car bomb that wounded dozens of people. On Thursday, two police officers on the island of Mallorca were killed by a second car bomb,.

This led me to perhaps my favorite tweet so far:

Twit the hashtag #etaNO. Let's show the world we're against terrorism.

Well, sure. I guess every bit counts. Or not.

(And no: HTWW is not going to become all-Twitter-all-the-time. I will resume my normal obsessions forthwith.)


By Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21.

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