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Rupert Murdoch Stumbles in Twitter Debut

News Corp CEO deletes tweet about British holidays

By Neal Colgrass, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 2, 2012 4:13 PM CST

(Newser) – Rupert Murdoch's big Twitter debut hasn't gone too smoothly, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The chief executive of News Corporation joined Twitter less than 48 hours ago and started with a message that he quickly deleted: "Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country!"—which he wrote while holidaying in the Caribbean. His wife, who also seems to have joined Twitter, reacted with: "RUPERT!! delete tweet!!"

He duly did so, and later revealed to his 40,000 followers that his Twitter profile was ruffling some feathers: "I'm getting killed for fooling around here and friends frightened what I may really say!" But his presence on Twitter—which the microblogging site has verified—seems to show that he's softened his antipathy toward cyberspace. In a 2009 Vanity Fair article, Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff wrote that Murdoch had called the Internet "predatory"—and, yes, considered it a den of "porn, thievery, and hackers."

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch delivers a keynote address at the National Summit on Education Reform on October 14, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. (Getty Images)

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch pauses as he delivers a keynote address at the National Summit on Education Reform on October 14, 2011 in San Francisco, California. (Getty Images)

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Rupert Murdoch Stumbles in Twitter Debut

News Corp CEO deletes tweet about British holidays

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