I think because it's the middle of the night in the US, and people are just starting Monday work in the UK. I seriously doubt a deliberate manipulation by twitter.
I'm sure they are. what I meant was that '#flotilla' may not be trending as hard as one would normally expect because the majority of twitter's english-speaking users are asleep or just starting work around now. 6-8 hours from now, when most of the US is awake, I imagine it will be far ahead of all other stories.