DC Ferguson Twitter posts blocked by spam, deletions

On the 18th of December, Twitter posts tagged with #dcferguson disappeared from Twitter searches unless "top" was selected instead of "all." Since "top" stories are old, this made it impossible to use Twitter to call protesters to assemble at a short notice time and place. Twitter themselves or right-wing/police hackers could potentially do this. For several days before this, a #dcferguson Twitter search would return large numbers of "falabeats" audio promos, and finally returned a half dozen pages of those posts at some times on Dec 18, burying almost all other posts.

I still remember a similar spam attack against the "where were you on A16" comment section added in summer 2000 to the original website that was used for organizing the April 16-17 2000 mass protests against the IMF and World Bank. The forum was unmoderated or moderated infrequently, so some enemy of the protesters started posting repeated cut and pastes of non-relevant mainstream press articles to bury all other posts. I am wondering if history is repeating itself, this time in a deliberate assault on activist communications intended to shut down protests the police chief has whined were "too expensive" and would lead to cuts in police occupying neighborhoods.