How can I search twitter without having an account?

Factual Questions
1

I have heard that twitter is excellent for local news events, one example I can think of it that during the death of Osama Bin Ladin several people near the compound tweeted about seeing or hearing gunshots or bizarre looking helicopters in the area.

This intrigues me and I’d like to make use of twitter for such ultra local news/conditions like flooding and such, but going to the website twitter won’t allow you to do anything unless you make an account.

Do you have to make an account just to search tweets by location, or read others tweets? Or is this possible even if you do have an account.

2

Have you tried something like HOWTO: Search the SDMB using Google but searching in Twitter instead? For example [this](site:twitter.com - Google Search “Osama Bin Laden” Abbottabad).

3

Perhaps it is worth pointing out that Twitter accounts are free, and having one does not commit you to doing any “tweeting” or to “following” anyone, etc.

4

Like other such web services, “free” of course is not paying money to join, and is giving up some privacy to the service, depending on the account settings. For example see the Twitter Privacy Policy, (the “Effective: October 21, 2013” version) including

That looks to me to be typical for such services. I for one am not (yet, if ever) a Twitterer, but per About there are 271 million monthly active users, and 500 million Tweets are sent per day. The 3,300 employees drink 585 gallons of coffee per week.

5

Right, but if he did as I suggested, i.e., join but not do any tweeting or following, there would be none of that information to be collected.

6

Of course there would be. The OP is specifically interested in searching Twitter, and the Twitter Terms of Service quoted here specifically mention that search terms will be logged.

7

The Twitter search page does not require an account.

8

Thank you!

Hah I went to themain twitter page but could not locate this.