Beyond satire? Louise Mensch launches her own Twitter

By politics.co.uk staff

Louise Mensch was lampooned online today after launching a rival to Twitter named Menshn.

The Tory MP and victim of online misogynistic abuse said she launched the application to bolster debate on specific topics.

The structure of the site means administrators, rather than users, would pick the topics for discussion. As it went live in the US only three topics were available: the upcoming elections, Barack Obama's campaign and Mitt Romney's campaign.

The Corby MP has repeatedly called for more control over social networking sites, once during the London riots last year, and again after she received an offensive message that threatened her and her children.

Her attempt to prevent internet bullies might have driven her to create Menshn which is like Twitter but without many of the features that make it so diverse and anarchic. The site still revolves around following people but it does not include retweets or, ironically, mentions.

At the moment, the site is only available at in the US and invites people to 'talk on topic'. It is due to reach the UK soon.

Its first day did not bode well however. Despite rules saying administrators would ban users for if they use the site to "harass, spam, or clog feeds", most early contributions seemed to be spam and trolling.