How to Get Yourself Retweeted

Hamza Kashgari, 23, tweeted that he wants to talk to Mohammed as a 'friend'

(NEWSER) - Islamists are calling for the execution of a young Saudi Arabian who tweeted last week about the Prophet Mohammed. "I have loved the rebel in you, you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me," Hamza Kashgari, 23, wrote in a tweet addressed to Mohammed. But "I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you,” he added. "I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more." His tweets triggered more than 30,000 responses in a single day, many of them from enraged Saudis calling for his death. Kashgari has since deleted his Twitter account, and apologized, but his home address was posted on YouTube and vigilantes have been hunting him at his mosque, reports the Daily Beast . More»

It involves whining about a sandwich

(NEWSER) - How to be an ace tweeter? Megan Garber at the Atlantic pores over a new study and starts her lesson with what not to do. This would be "The Most Annoying Tweet Imaginable":

• "BREAKING: Last week I had a #sandwich that was SO HORRIBLE, it made me want to #scream. Seriously, why can't they make better #sandwiches?"

Move represents major policy switch

(NEWSER) - Twitter has apparently decided corporate relations are more important than content. Company officials have announced that they will voluntarily restrict Twitter content in specific countries to comply with government limits on what citizens are allowed to read. "As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," Twitter wrote in a blog post yesterday . "Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world." More»

Lamar Smith seems unfazed by powerful opponents to piracy bill

(NEWSER) - Rep. Lamar Smith, author of the fiercely controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, doesn't sound like he's bothered much by the heated opposition from e-powerhouses such as Facebook, Google, Reddit, and Twitter. "It is amazing to me that the opponents apparently don't want to protect American consumers and businesses," the Texas Republican tells Reuters . The SOPA bill, which would authorize the government to seek federal injunctions against foreign-based websites suspected of piracy, is still in committee hearings and could reach the House floor in a few weeks. More»

News Corp CEO deletes tweet about British holidays

(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!!" More»