The most shared filibuster in the nation’s history

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/with-filibuster-c-span-has-a-hit-on-its-hands/

With Filibuster, C-SPAN Has A Hit On Its Hands
By BRIAN STELTER

...One can only guess about whether Mr. Sanders’ long speech will effect the tax cut compromise. But his stakeout on the Senate floor certainly enlivened people who agree with him — or who simply wanted a public debate about tax cuts, income inequality, trade policies and the other topics he tackled. Jose Antonio Vargas, a senior contributing editor to The Huffington Post, wondered aloud on Friday evening, “Is this the most shared filibuster in the nation’s history?!”

It sure looked that way. Mr. Sanders’ name was at the top of Twitter’s “trending topics” list by Friday evening, closely followed by a hashtag, #filibernie, that has become a public chat room for viewers. By refreshing the page for #filibernie, Twitter users were able to read real-time reactions from hundreds of viewers. Most of the reactions were from people who were praising Mr. Sanders’ stance against the tax cut deal. Other posts on Twitter were short quotes from Mr. Sanders’ speech. Encouraging such behavior, Mr. Sanders’ staff regularly posted onto Twitter about the long speech, at one point even denying “erroneous rumors of a plan to end at 6pm.” At 6:25 p.m., Mr. Sanders passed the eight-hour mark on the Senate floor. Mr. Sanders’ Twitter account gained more than 4,000 new followers on Friday, his staff said.

The speech was a bigger deal online than on TV, at least in its early hours. But it is likely to get heavy play on MSNBC’s left-leaning shows on Friday night. On his Twitter page, Keith Olbermann, the 8 p.m. anchor on MSNBC, deemed it “An Older Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” and said he would share the highlights of the speech on his program.

News Web sites like CNN.com also live-streamed the proceedings on the floor, as did Mr. Sanders’ own Web site. According to The Huffington Post, that video stream “became so popular that it temporarily shut down the Senate video server.” For its part, C-SPAN was treating Mr. Sanders’ speech as the top story on its Web site Friday evening.

The Internet has to remain neutral for this to be in our favor.

:kick: