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Twitter Played an Increased Role in New York City News in 2010

By DNAinfo Staff on December 31, 2010 8:28am

By Jennifer Glickel

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — From Lady Gaga's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rant to the controversy surrounding the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, New Yorkers sparked a wide variety of entertaining and news making tweets in 2010.

Twitter's role in the news cycle of 2010 was tremendous, so DNAinfo put together a list of this year’s top Twitter moments in New York City.

1. Participants in the Easter Times Square riots tweet about their involvement

Police arrested and issued summonses to 54 people on April 4 after a massive brawl in Times Square broke, leaving four people shot. Many who participated in the Easter Sunday riots tweeted about that night’s incident, which appeared to involve members of several Harlem youth gangs.

"WENT MOBBIN ON 42....WAT YU DOIN TODAY?" a person with the Twitter handle _650K tweeted the Monday following the riots in response to a friend asking what he had done the night prior.

Tweets mentioning the Times Square melee often included the acronyms for Harlem Youth gangs like Original Young Gangsters (OYG) and Get Money Boys (GMB).

"SHOUT OUT 2 GMB BMG OYG NIGGAS WAS LIVE ON 42ND," Twitter user BADBOY_BUTTA wrote early Monday morning.

2. Rutgers student Tyler Clementi committed suicide after his roommate outed him on Twitter.

The body of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi, 18, was found in the Harlem River on Sept. 29 after he jumped from the George Washington Bridge to his death a week earlier. Clementi jumped after finding out that his roommate, Dharun Ravi, 18, had broadcast Clementi’s intimate activities with another male on Twitter.

"Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay," Ravi said on his Twitter page, which has since been deleted, in a Sept. 19 entry posted at 6:17 p.m.

Two days later, Ravi directed his Twitter followers to iChat to watch a live video feed of Clementi’s private activities, writing "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."

Ravi and fellow Rutgers student Molly Wei, also 18, were arrested on charges on invasion of privacy.

3. The team behind the planned Ground Zero mosque created a unique Twitter identity.

Park51, dubbed the Ground Zero mosque, was at the center of much Manhattan-centric news this year, and the group behind the project took to Twitter to garner support.

Park51’s social media team used their Twitter handle to engage with and challenge opponents to the proposed mosque — often with a bit of attitude.

"You can let me know when you're done not listening," Park51 tweeted on Aug. 10 after an extended back-and-forth with a Wisconsin libertarian Twitter user called sockmonkeyrulz, who warned that the center would host "stonings, beheadings, mutilations, rape, bestiality, homosexuality, pedophilia."

But Park51's Twitter following did not come without its stumbling blocks. The group had to fire its Twitter team in August after getting into a Twitter tiff with their critics backfired in a burst of perceived anti-Semitism.

"If Haaretz likes publishing fables, perhaps they could go back to the Yiddish ones with parable," Park51 wrote.

The comment provoked a firestorm on Twitter and prompted Park51 to release a statement saying their social media team was being replaced.

4. Kanye West joined Twitter. Hilarity ensued.

Kanye West joined Twitter in July and saw it fit to use it as a public platform for all the random thoughts that passed through the rapper's head.

Some of the Tweets were so funny, in fact, that comedy duo Paul and Storm paired the rapper's musings with New Yorker cartoons.

In one such cartoon, two dogs are depicted as talking to one another with a caption provided by a Kanye tweet, which read, "Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on."

5. Pop megastar Lady Gaga used Twitter to reach out to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand about repealing DADT.

Lady Gaga used Twitter to get the attention of senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer in support of legislation to repeal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," which was recently passed by Congress and President Obama.

When Gaga tweeted a video message showing her calls to the senators going unanswered, Gillibrand took to Twitter herself in response, writing, "Thx for calling. I couldn't agree more and am helping lead the fight to repeal DADT. Do you have a moment to talk later today?"

6. Sarah Palin invented the word "refudiate" in a tweet about the proposed Ground Zero mosque.

The former Alaska governor used the word in a July tweet to call on "peaceful Muslims" to "refudiate" the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. When critics jumped on Palin for seemingly combining the words "repudiate" and "refute," she quickly deleted it and posted a new tweet correcting her error by using the word "refute."

Palin’s tweet got so much attention that the New American Oxford Dictionary named 'refudiate' its 2010 Word of the Year.

7. New York City Marathon runners tweeted their 26.2-mile runs through the city.

Many of the ING New York City Marathon’s 43,000 participants used Twitter to chronicle training for and running November’s annual event. This was the first time marathon organizers made a focused effort to build a community on Twitter in advance of the big race.

8. Mayor Bloomberg directed New York City voters to tweet any issues at the polls on Election Day.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg encouraged New York’s voters to tweet their Election Day voting issues, and many took note by using the hashtag #nycvotes.

"Who designed that ballot? The 2 people ahead of me were rejected for 'overvoting,'" Twitter user MiriamRabkin wrote of her experience at Harlem’s Election District 68 polling place on Nov. 2.

9. Pee-wee Herman visited New York and documented his travels on Twitter.

Former television star Pee-wee Herman tweeted his way through Manhattan in early October in advance of his new Broadway show. From a stop at Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side to a stroll along the High Line in Chelsea, Herman made his whereabouts known on Twitter.

10. The Inwood Safety Patrol organized on Twitter to come together after a sexual assault in the neighborhood.

After 59-year-old Debbie Nathan was sexually assaulted while jogging in Inwood Hill Park back in February, concerned members of the community came together via Twitter to form the Inwood Safety Patrol. Nathan’s attack in conjunction with a streak of muggings in the area prompted residents to create a foot patrol that documented its outings on a website and on a Twitter feed.