Rupert Murdoch Tweets

It seems that Rupert Murdoch has finally got around to claiming the existing “Fake Rupert Murdoch” twitter account that was created back in March 2009. In a low profile launch Jack Dorsey has tweeted that it is in fact the real Rupert Murdoch who is now in charge of the account.

That statement is backed by the small blue verified twitter account tick that is now showing on this account. But in what is a social media fopaux, Mr Murdoch has not replaced the standard Egg avatar with his real image which fuels suspicion among Twitter users that it’s still a fake account or a publicity stunt.

Rupert Murdoch

The tweets have been fairly awkward so far leading to some fairly open and aggressive responses from users on Twitter.  There seems to be a learning curve and it looks to be a lot steeper than the poor old guy expected. The general feeling is that unlike traditional press that Rupert was able to censor, the public may find out how thick his skin really is on an open forum.

You can track the number of tweets mentioning Rupert here, and a warning a lot of them are NSFW, including wishes he was dead, personal attacks, requests for him not to follow them back, and generally attacks around any and all News Corporation properties.  After all the outspoken anger around News Corp and News of the World scandals, social media now has an actual account/person to focus their anger towards which may end in tears.  The biggest outspoken critic of any significance speaking out on Rupert Murdoch joining twitter so far has been John Prescott.

 

 

So there is some interest in the media/journalist area as I can see a number of them are already following Rupert’s account back, the real question will be how long until someone crosses the line and provokes Rupert enough that he takes a swipe at them publically.  This will be a real test of his patience as well as his anger management as so far the social media sphere doesn’t appear to be all that warm to the idea Rupert is now playing on their playground.

Rupert’s Choice of followers?

What is going to be a very interesting insight into how Rupert thinks is who he starts to follow as this is now public information and may be a great insight.  He started with Jack Dorsey, then Mark Pincus and now Plaid Larry Page….?

Fastest growing account ever?

The account seems to be attracting interest with around around 50 new followers being added every minute so far which could put him at around 1.7 million followers within the next 24 hours. That looks to be well on track to smash Charlie Sheens 1 million followers in 25 hours and 17 minutes, but the question is how many people will stick around unless Rupert actually adds some value to his tweets…