Murdoch launches bitter Google tirade on Twitter
Fledgling social media aficionado Rupert Murdoch has launched a series of 140 character assaults on internet search giant Google via his newly minted Twitter account after being offered links to free downloads whilst searching for ‘Mission Impossible’ via the search engine.
The Australian media baron used his new platform to accuse Google of being a ‘leader’ of internet piracy by highlighting the links it was providing to illegal film hosting sites.
Typing on his iPad the 80 year old contended: “Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.”
The tweet referred to Murdoch’s fear that Google is successfully lobbying the Obama administration to water down its online piracy legislation.
A day later, apparently responding to dissenters, Murdoch returned to tweet: “Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally, Google blocks many other undesirable things.”
Responding to the remarks a Google spokesperson said: “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.
"Like many other tech companies, we believe that there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking US companies to censor the Internet."