How Newsweek's #Muslimrage went rogue

CHICAGO - AUGUST 2: The August 2 issue of Newsweek magazine is shown on a newsstand on August 2, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. Newsweek is one of the top three newsweeklies in the US but as of 2007 has lost $44 million in operating costs. (Getty Images)

When old media (e.g the venerable Newsweek magazine, est. 1933) takes up the tools of new media, (e.g Twitter hashtags), clumsiness often ensues.

Such was the case when Newsweek tried to publicise their September 24th cover story on the Innocence of Muslims protests, with the snappy "#Muslimrage". "Want to discuss our latest cover? Let's hear it with the hashtag: #MuslimRage", they tweeted. It didn't quite go as planned.

"The tagged reactions to Newsweek's proposal have been...mixed," writes Megan Garber in The Atlantic, "Some tweets are funny. Some are satirical. Some are cruel. But they are pretty much united in their rejection of Newsweek's premise that "Muslim rage" is something to be talked about, under the magazine's brand, on Twitter. Which is also to say: People rejected glibness."

You can read the selection of tweets here.

The situation is also reminiscent of the joyful hashtag reappropriation of the EDL's "creeping sharia" phrase in April.

@TheLostRosa tweets "When the garden centre won't sell you a #creepingsharia for your fence muslimrage"