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Miranda Devine's 'gay slur' on Twitter |
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News -
Australian News
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Written by The Australian
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Tuesday, 11 May 2010 01:36 |
Twitter - Gay Slur : WRITE-before- you-think microblogging site Twitter produced another media scandal yesterday when Fairfax columnist Miranda Devine levelled what some interpreted as a homophobic slur.
Devine, who tweets as @mirandadevine, got involved in an online altercation with another Twitter user over her weekend newspaper column, which took as its topic the sacking of fellow Fairfax columnist Catherine Deveny.
Tweeter @justinbarbour said to Devine: "You've had enough of attacking the gays for now i see. great thanks."
Devine fired back: "You've had enough of rogering gerbils I see. great. thanks."
Devine subsequently deleted her "gerbils" tweet, causing @justinbarbour to promptly post a screenshot of it on Twitter.
It started a storm of comment, users creating a separate topic name "rogeringgerbils" .
The "twitspit" prompted Deveny to tweet yesterday: "It's sad. Miranda will keep her job and I will still have lost mine. But it's gerbils I really feel sorry for."
Deveny's sacking again demonstrated how vulnerable news outlets are to embarrassment from tweeting journalists.
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