Twitter really shines at this kind of thing, much more effective even than the massive protest Facebook groups were because it can more quickly connect like minded people, even if they don't happen to already be friends.
Now when some news breaks that I'm skeptical about, or if I want to get a quick poll of the public mood, Twitter search is the first thing I turn to.
It's like a massive town square for the whole world.
The problem with using Twitter for polls is the sample (Twitter users) is very homogenous and very unrepresentative of the target population, that is unless your target population is Twitter users.
The article states "people were rushing to delete photos and incriminating messages". I find that very untrue and the article made the ordeal bigger then it actually was. Not to mention it wasn't just twitter but also people blogging and such. Things in the past such as the news feed had a 10x larger uproar then this did. (I know I'm going to get down ranked just because you disagree with me)
(I know I'm going to get down ranked just because you disagree with me)
Sorry go to off topic, but what makes you think that? Comments at HN are generally only downvoted for being inappropriate, immature, or extremely insubstantial. Say something interesting and you'll probably get upvoted even by people who disagree with you.
Back on topic, I agree, the article dramatizes things quite a bit. Maybe the new ToS were first noticed/discussed on Twitter, but I don't think that mean Twitter "won" something against Facebook. Also, pet peeve: overuse of the word 'viral'. If 'went viral' just means 'got Dugg' then it's not a very meaningful term.
As someone who I'd like to think has proven to be of some worth to the community I can tell you first hand that people downvote based on disagreement all the time. In my experience it's just a few jerks (I've never been significantly down voted on a quality comment) but it does happen.
I think there was even an "Ask HN" topic on this a while back with people defending the fact that they downvote because the disagree (Sorry, not enough time to search for it right now)
Now when some news breaks that I'm skeptical about, or if I want to get a quick poll of the public mood, Twitter search is the first thing I turn to.
It's like a massive town square for the whole world.