Today in TechDid Obama’s same-sex marriage tweet break Twitter records?
To say that President Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage yesterday was historic is something of an understatement. But it appears that it didn't just make history in the fight for gay rights — it may have also made Twitter history as one of the most retweeted messages of all time, as well.
Twitter's interface only shows exact retweet numbers up to a total of 50, referring to all totals higher as "50+." But thanks to self-proclaimed hacker Michael Schonfeld, we know exactly how many times the Obama message has been retweeted. According to retweetingobama.com, a site that uses the Twitter API to generate an exact total of the number of retweets Obama's historic announcement received, it has been shared over 56,726 times in the last 24 hours... and counting.
The most retweeted comment of all time appears to be a June 2011 tweet from restaurant chain Wendy's, which offered 50 cents to charity for each time someone clicked to send the message off to their friends. There are no official numbers offered by Twitter, but the retweet count is well over 100,000.
That Wendy's tweet, however, was "sponsored" — meaning that the Wendy's Corporation paid to have it appear in all users' Twitter streams. President Obama's tweet was not sponsored, meaning that it had to go viral organically, without paid assistance.
Twitter has yet to confirm whether or not President Obama's tweet is indeed the most retweeted, non-sponsored tweet of all time, but there is plenty of evidence in his favor. And if it isn't yet, given that people are still feverishly hitting that "retweet" button, it may just be a matter of time until it is.
[Image credit: White House]
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
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