Hezbollah tweet costs CNN reporter her job

Washington: Last week, CNN's senior Middle East editor Octavia Nasr was fired after she expressed sadness over the death of a Lebanese Shia cleric on Twitter. The tweet was immediately picked up and criticized by supporters of Israel.

Nasr, a 20-year-old veteran, quickly removed a tweet and tried to clarify her stand in a longer piece in her blog but by then it had been heavily circulated.

"Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot," wrote Octavia Nasr on Twitter.

Critics say that Fadlallah - once a strong Hezbollah supporter - was staunchly anti-US and anti-Semitic and a terrorist.

Nasr quickly clarified that she admired only his stance against the abuse of Muslim women, not all of his political views. But the damage was already done.

"140 characters are not necessarily good enough to explain something that is complicated and has a lot of nuance," said Sree Srinivasan, Commentator on tech and media issues.

However, Nasr 's firing has sparked off a firestorm of debate on the net, where some are saying it is not the limitations of twitter updates that are to blame, but rather the network itself.