'Never-ending' Twitter chain: mystery solved
We dubbed it the Great Twitter Chain, but struggled to find its origins. Now all can be revealed.
BBC Trending What's popular and why Earlier we brought you the story of a seemingly endless string of teasing Twitter messages. At the time we reported that the very first tweet in the chain, written by American journalist Charles C W Cooke, had been deleted. We were frustrated (and after 60-odd links, our clicky finger was tired). We pleaded with Cooke - but he wouldn't reveal the original message's contents. But of course you can't hide for long on the internet. After seeing our post, Twitter user Ham (@ChimpNo65) got in touch to point out that the original tweet had long ago been screengrabbed by T Journal, a Russian website. And the link referenced? Well, it's a response to a response to a criticism of a feature story about the US Tea Party movement. Not exactly thrilling, unless you're into arcane arguments about American constitutional interpretation (really, really into them). But at least now we can sleep at night. Blog by Mike Wendling You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending All our stories are at bbc.com/trending