Rupert Murdoch (Photo AAP)

Rupert Murdoch has once again stirred up controversy in 140 characters or less.

Earlier this week, news of a woman who fell through the sidewalk on the Upper East Side of Manhattan made headlines. Luckily, the woman, Ulanda Williams, who had been waiting for a bus when the sidewalk collapsed, survived the six-foot drop with only a broken arm and some bruises and cuts.

But adding insult to injury, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has been freely tweeting of late, had an interesting reaction to the the incident. The post from @rupertmurdoch, Jan. 15, 2013: "How did fat lady who fell thru street get to 400 lbs? Welfare, stamps, etc? Then leave us all with 20yrs immense health bills."

Rupert Murdoch's tweet

Not only did he assume that Williams was on welfare, but he may have missed some of the details in his own New York Post, which had noted that being heavyset may have been to her advantage.

“Thank God, they said that my size was the only thing that saved me,” Williams, a 32-year-old social worker, said when she was discharged from New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Later that same day Murdoch tweeted, in a sort of mea culpa, "Did not mean to be unsympathetic to 400 lb lady, but fact remains unhealthy eating by rich and poor driving up premiums for all."

Murdoch has gotten into trouble for his micro posts before. As a result, he's had to apologize for suggesting that Gen. David Petraeus had “taken the fall” for President Barack Obama following the killing of U.S. consulate personnel in Benghazi, Libya. He also said he was sorry for asking why the “Jewish owned press [was] so consistently anti-Israel.”