Anti-Berlusconi tweets swamp Twitter feed at EU summit

LONDON - Critics of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hijacked giant screens at the venue of an EU summit in Brussels to tweet against him.

In one tweet Berlusconi, 74, was called a “Mafioso”, who “makes laws for be not judged”, and another said that he had paid for “for sex, for votes”.

The “tweet wall” was shown on two plasma screens in the main hall of the building, as 27 European leaders met to discuss the eurozone debt crisis.

It was stopped after two hours, and organisers say its main goal was met.

The tweet wall was programmed to republish all postings with the hashtag and EUCO, on the first day of the summit.

Another Twitter user posted old quotes from the Italian prime minister aimed at embarrassing him.

“Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on holiday in internal exile,” the BBC quoted one as stating.

The EU official who organised the experiment said its aim had been to test ways of promoting the European Council’s presence on Twitter and this had been achieved.

She said her team would experiment with other tools in the future and was “learning by doing”. (ANI)