Twitter hammers Rupert Murdoch over ‘jihadist cancer’ remark

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter Friday night to chastise Muslims for failing to weed out the "jihadist cancer" in their midst, drawing intense criticism on the social media platform.

Murdoch wrote, "Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible," laying the blame for the actions of a few militant jihadists on the approximately 1.6 billion followers of the religion.

Murdoch's tweet follows the shooting at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and comes on the heels of criticism of his Fox News network hosts inability to find Muslims willing to criticize extreme followers of the religion, despite being readily available.

Responding to Murdoch, many on Twitter called him out for blaming followers of the religion for the actions of a few extremists, while criticizing him and the way his news network covered the shooting and its aftermath.

On respondent called Murdoch a "clueless fool," while another told the billionaire media mogul, "Stop talking. You're too rich to be on Twitter saying dumb shit."

Others asked Murdoch to apply the same standard to other religions, with one writing, "Going by that logic all Christians should be held responsible for child sex abuse, the crimes of priests & the church."

Still others took the time to try and point out that his blanket condemnation was wildly wrong-headed and played into the hands of extremists who want to drag the non-Islamic world into a holy war.

"I'm no lover of Islam, but there are decent human beings in the faith. The terrorist want us to hate them, that's the whole point," one wrote.

Another on Twitter reminded Murdoch of the phone hacking scandal which brought down his News of The World tabloid in 2011, writing, "Dearie me, @rupertmurdoch holds 'all' Muslims responsible for terrorism. Let's hold all Australians responsible for phone hacking."

Murdoch's tweet and a sampling of responses below: