One of Britain’s leading right wing newspapers, The Daily Mail, appears to have lost touch with its readers over its criticism of the fascist Islamophobic British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin.

In recent days, Mail readers have overwhelming voiced support for Griffin and the BNP on the paper’s website, despite trenchant attacks on the party by the outlet’s leading commentators.

The clash comes on the back of Griffin’s first ever appearance on the BBC’s flagship political debate programme, Question Time, on Thursday night in which the extremist defended his description of Islam as ‘vile and wicked’, repeated his view that homosexuals were ‘creepy’, and failed to refute that he had a record Holocaust denial.

I read a great post today on Global Voices Advocacy presenting the incredible power of Twitter as a mechanism for enabling communication and better networking despite state repression.

So much is said about Twitter, but not a huge amount about its emerging role in the Middle East. So it’s great to see this conversation emerge. It will no doubt enrich and forward the ‘what have bloggers done for the Middle East’ discussion – which has started to feel stale.

But two important caveats need to be made about Twitter in the Middle East before we simply assume that it already plays a critical social role.

The Beirut-based news outfit Menassat has closed after its Dutch backers Free Voice withdrew funding support.

The closure brings to an end two years of quality journalism at Menassat which built a reputation for monitoring and investigating Arab media news.

In a statement posted on its website, Menassat’s staff said they were given less than 24 hours notice of the closure.

He’s widely tipped to be the next President of Egypt. He’s the policy chief in the ruling National Democratic Party (the NDP). And now he’s talking to Egyptians directly through the social web.

Today Gamal Mubarak, son of incumbent President Hosni Mubarak, will address questions posted on Facebook through a live video webcast.

It’s all part of an effort to build Mubarak junior’s credibility and support base, ahead of any future tussle for the presidency.

A Muslim blogger is creating waves for a book that tells her story of finding love.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed’s ‘memoir of growing up as a Muslim woman’ tells of her quest to find the right man through the traditional route of arranged marriage.

With an extract published in The Daily Mail and an interview in The Guardian, Janmohamed has seen her book Love in a Headscarf shoot to a five star rating on Amazon, suggesting it has hit a chord with readers.

“I was really overwhelmed by how connected people felt to the story and how it had humanised what it meant to be a Muslim woman,” Janmohamed said. “That for me was really important.”