With Steve Jobs’ Wednesday night death garnered upwards of 10,000 tweets per second

Hi

I was reading this news report. I'm just curious what do they try to demostrate at the funerals of some individuals? Are they showing that they are happy for the death of that individual? Well, these days some people would pick up any trifle issue or no issue to make them seem important!

What does "upwards" mea here?

With Steve Jobs’ Wednesday night death garnered upwards of 10,000 tweets per second about his passing, one microblog message especially stood out — the Westboro Baptist Church took to Twitter to announce that they’d be picketing his funeral.

Fred Phelp’s Westboro Baptist Church has received international infamy in the decades since he first started preaching, largely because of the church’s ongoing protesting at the funerals of soldiers and public figures. They’ve gone after the US Marine Corps, slain gay icon Matthew Sheppard, metal singer Ronnie James Dio and even conducted a protest at Arlington National Cemetery this Memorial Day as part of their “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” campaign. Now Fred Phelps and family are going after Jobs, whom the church has called a teacher of sin.