THE OIL trader Trafigura was found guilty by a Dutch court on Friday of dumping hazardous waste in Ivory Coast, and fined €1m.

The company transported the toxic sludge, which has allegedly poisoned thousands of people, to the west African county illegally  - but Trafigura intended to ensure no-one  found out about it.

Last year, The Guardian tried to publish a story based on leaked scientific reports about the pollution, but the newspaper was slapped with an injunction, which meant that it couldn’t reveal the contents of the report.

Then a superinjuction was sought by the oil trader – an extraordinary measure which meant that the newspaper could not even report that the company had gone to court in the first place.

The affair became a constitutional crisis in Britain after Trafigura tried to stop the media reporting on parliamentary matters.

Meanwhile, the Guardian’s frustrated editor, Alan Rusbridger, tweeted that there was something going on… but he couldn’t say what. One human rights activist and blogger familiar with Trafigura put two and two together and tweeted his suspicions, sparking a flurry of information being released.

So, in honour of the little tweet that could, here are some other moments that Twitter made it to the headlines:

Iran’s “Twitter revolution”

The news of thousands of Iranians tweeting during the controversial elections in 2009 in protest against the regime sparked interest in the western media. Was this a microblogging revolution? Well, not quite. It soon emerged that Twitter users across the world had been changing their location settings in an attempt to, well,  freak out the Iranian government.

Twitter was responsible for other subterfuge attempts that summer: as authorities tried to contain protests in Tehran, a user known only as “OxfordGirl” was tweeting from England  to warn those in the capital about areas in the city that were erupting with danger.

The Truffle Kerfuffle

Take one New York Times journalist, one unflattering profile of an up-and-coming singer, and one disgruntled singer. So far, so unremarkable.

Critics said the offending New York Times profile by Lynn Hirschberg (the same woman who wrote a notoriously savage article about Courtney Love in the 90s)  implied that Sri Lankan rap artist M.I.A. was naive and self-satisfied. However,  it was the description of her eating “a truffle-flavoured French fry” that really got M.I.A. miffed.

In the age of information, what else to do but tweet Hirschberg’s phone number and suggest fans give her a piece of their minds?

But the veteran journalist was unruffled by the truffle kerfuffle. “She’s a provocateur, and provocateurs want to be provocative,” she said.

The CNN editor and the Lebanese Cleric

Octavia Nasr was not alone when she expressed sadness at news of the death of Lebanese cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah – thousands of people flooded the streets of Beruit to follow his funeral cortege, and many more mourned across the Muslim world.

Nasr tweeted:

Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah… One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.

But Nasr, who had 7,000 followers on Twitter, wasn’t just a person saddened by some bad news – she was Middle East editor for CNN. The channel did not take lightly her apparent lack of objectivity – and even less the implied support for a figure viewed by many to have links with Hezbollah.

Nasr, who said in her defence that she respected Fadlallah’s forward thinking view on women’s issues, was promptly fired.

The Politicians’ Best Friend

Firstly the obvious: Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He managed to run rings around his opposition after embracing microblogging as a campaign method. And it worked out pretty well for him.

But he’s not the only one to welcome 140-character-communication; the Kremlin just signed up too.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev keeps in contact with the people, with updates on foreign policy and regional development. But he also likes to just shoot the breeze sometimes, too. Last week he tweeted a request for an update on Russia’s recent scorching weather:

Arrived in Finland. Heard it has rained in Moscow?

In Turkey, President Abdullah Gul seized on Twitter as a means to express his disappointment at the decision to shut down YouTube. He tweeted a condemnation of the ban and demanded that it be removed to prevent the country being accused of censorship.

And closer to home, Dan Boyle let his feelings about Willie O’Dea be aired in the method of the moment, tweeting:

As regards to Minister O’Dea I don’t have confidence in him. His situation is compromised. Probably be a few chapters in this story yet.

O’Dea resigned a day later.