The Tweet Murdoch Took down ... Fast

KOMPAS.com - Less than two days after joining Twitter, media mogul Rupert Murdoch appears to have had his first brush with tweeting-before-thinking, after suggesting that the British have too many holidays for a "broke country".

Though Mr Murdoch, who joined Twitter less than 48 hours ago and already has almost 40,000 followers, quickly deleted the message, it was preserved by some Twitter users and quickly spread around the website. "Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country!" Mr Murdoch, who is holidaying on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy, wrote about 6am Australian time.

His wife, Wendi Deng, also appears to have joined the increasingly ubiquitous microblogging site, quickly replied: "RUPERT!! delete tweet!!" Within minutes the Wendi Deng account, which has not yet been verified and may not be genuine, continued: "EVERY1 @rupertmurdoch was only having a joke pROMSIE!!!"

Minutes later: "explaining to @rupertmurdoch about being careful with humor on line. sometimes it comes out as rude!" About five hours later Mr Murdoch revealed his Twitter profile was causing people close to him some angst.

"I'm getting killed for fooling around here and friends frightened what I may really say!" he wrote.

The decision of the octogenarian billionaire to embrace Twitter has been greeted with surprise by many, given his previous view of the internet as the home of "porn, thievery and hackers". However, his first attempts to use the social-media website suggest may still be about getting the hang of it, with misplaced full stops and strange syntax abounding.

And it appears that he has also yet to win the love and adoration of some Twitter users - known as "tweeps" - with many expressing a range of emotions about his presence in tweets. Former British deputy prime minister John Prescott was one of the first to welcome Mr Murdoch to the Twittersphere, adding: "I've left you a Happy New Year message on my voicemail."

"The first 30 tweets from @RupertMurdoch are free, then the paywall goes up," wrote the owner of a Murdoch parody account, @RupertMurdochPR.

Joining Twitter would be the strongest sign yet that Mr Murdoch has moved away from what was previously a strongly held antipathy towards the web, which has caused massive profit slumps in traditional media. In a 2009 article in Vanity Fair, Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff wrote that the mogul viewed the internet as "predatory", stating: "For him it's a place for porn, thievery, and hackers."

That year, Mr Murdoch warned investors at the annual Sun Valley media and technology conference to "be careful" of investing in Twitter, which he reportedly said had yet to show it could provide a sustainable revenue stream. For that and other reasons, many assumed at first that Mr Murdoch's account was a hoax and the media mogul was not genuinely behind the account. The account has been "verified" by Twitter and one of the website's co-founders, Jack Dorsey, greeted him in a message on the site.