Rupert Murdoch Goes on Twitter Rampage Targeting Obama, Google ~ Pare News

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Well, Rupert Murdoch, you’re officially a Twitter celebrity now.

Going down the road well trod by the likes of Charlie Sheen and Kevin Smith, the News Corp. CEO let loose a multiple-message Twitter rant over the weekend, targeting President Obama and Google over antipiracy legislation that the White House said it would not support. Google responded to the multi-tweet rant, calling Murdoch’s stance “nonsense.”

Murdoch was apparently responding a White House statement that amounted to hedged opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which proposes to give the government the power to cut off pirate sites from services like Google searches and PayPal as well as alter how the Internet recognizes those domains so even users manually typing in the URLs won’t find them. While the White House admitted piracy was a “serious problem,” it said it would not support legislation that “undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

The rant began early Saturday evening, when Murdoch posted the following tweet:

So Obama has thrown in his lot withSilicon Valley paymasters who threaten allsoftware creators with piracy, plain thievery. -

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) January 14, 2012

Murdoch, as the head of a major media company, clearly has a large stake in the realm of online content and piracy. Murdoch has said or implied on many occasions that he considers even aggregating or linking to stories to be piracy, which is exactly what he did when he lumped Google into his pile of perceived piracy enablers with a subsequent tweet:

Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them.No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) January 14, 2012

Google responded yesterday with a statement to CNET, saying, “This is just nonsense. Last year we took down 5 million infringing web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads… We fight pirates and counterfeiters every day.”

There’s also the question of exactly what Murdoch is talking about. As many (including journalism professor Jeff Jarvis) have noted, saying that Google “streams movies free” is twisting and oversimplifying many facts. Google streams lots of content for free via YouTube, of course, but it’s aggressively policed for pirated content. As revealed in his next tweet, Murdoch appears to be equating streaming with having links turn up in a Google search:

Just been to google search for mission impossible. Wow, several sites offering free links.I rest my case.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) January 15, 2012

In a tweet the next day Murdoch sounds as if he realizes his error (or had it pointed out to him by various Twitter users) but stands by his overall position.

Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally google blocks many other undesirable things.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) January 15, 2012

Murdoch rounded out his Twitter blast with an odd message, which appears to be giving a snapshot of the entertainment industry, ostensibly what online piracy threatens.

More pirates.Whole entertainment ind employs 2.2 million ave salary 65 g. Good jobs and expanding foreign earnings. Made in America, too!

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) January 16, 2012

What’s your take on Murdoch’s outburst on Twitter? Does he have a point that Google and others should not link to pirated content, even if he is flimsy with his facts? Or does he simply fundamentally misunderstand online content? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: 8 Celebrity Social Media Meltdowns

Ashton Kutcher

Kutcher got into hot water last month when he fired off a tweet defending Penn State coach Joe Paterno after Paterno was implicated in a scandal related to assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged history of sexually molesting children. "How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste," the tweet said. Later on, Kutcher tweeted, "Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet!" and "Didn't have full story. #admitwhenYoumakemistakes." Shortly afterwards, Kutcher announced that he was turning over the management of his Twitter account to Katalyst Media, a firm he co-owns.

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Photo credit: Alec Baldwin at the premiere of “Evelyn” at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Ca. Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002. Photo by Kevin Winter/ImageDirect.

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