The L.A. Times printed a sensational expose on how Google had a deal with Twitter to index and make publicly searchable protected tweets. Twitter allows users to keep their tweets private, seen just by their followers. But the Times asserted that Google had special access and that the Tweets were viewable to the public via search.
TechCrunch quickly picked up on the probability that the Tweets were searchable were likely public ones that were published before users went private with their Twitter feeds.
Then, the LA Times published an update with official comment from Twitter saying they do not have a deal with Google for access to private Tweets.
So, that happened.