How the Hashtag Became a Campaign Battleground - Nancy Scola - Politics - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/how-the-hashtag-became-a-campaign-battleground/247488
"It's all geek culture," says Lotan, "and it's amazing how Twitter has brought it to the masses so that everyone and their mother is using it. It's about letting people dive into conversations they wouldn't have seen otherwise. Twitter is one massive conversation, and those conventions let you dive into ideas, into funny inside jokes."
/Message: Twitter #Hashtags Backlash Begins
http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2007/09/twitter-hashtag.html
"Haven't even gotten #hashtags off the ground, and people already want them filtered."