STEPHEN FRY has said he is going to quit Twitter after a fellow user of the popular internet site described him as “boring”.

The television presenter has been one of Britain’s biggest champions of the social networking site. Last month he used it to announce the end of his television series Kingdom. He also used Twitter to spearhead a campaign against a newspaper columnist who had described the death of Stephen Gately, the gay pop star, as "sleazy", describing the article as “loathsome”.

Yesterday Fry said he was ready to silence his fingers and thumbs and stop providing his 925,000 followers with near-hourly updates on his thoughts and activities, known as “tweets”.

At 2.18pm he posted: “Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around. Pity. Well, it’s been fun.”

Fry has battled with depression in the past and his comments sparked concern among fans and fellow celebrities, who instantly started a Save Stephen campaign on the site. His decision to quit came shortly after getting into a war of words with another user.

BrumPlum, a 47-year-old blogger called Richard from Birmingham, had posted a tweet that said: “I understand Stephen Fry’s tweets but, much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit . . . boring . . . (sorry Stephen).”

Fry responded: “BrumPlum you’ve convinced me. I’m obviously not good enough. I retire from Twitter henceforward. Bye everyone.”

BrumPlum later apologised to the television star but said that Fry had overreacted to his comments. BrumPlum’s feed has now been bombarded by comments from angry Fry fans.

After a flurry of messages from other members of the “Twitterati” calling for him to stay on the site, Fry appeared to backtrack slightly and posted: “Well maybe I’ll see how I feel in a few days. Very low and depressed at the moment and any drop of meanness makes it so much worse. Sorry.”

The presenter of the quiz show QI hit the headlines recently when he used his Twitter account to rail against an article by the Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir on the death of Gately.

His tweets were credited with prompting the record 21,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission over the opinion piece, which he described as “a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with”.

However, some of his other tweets might justly be described as falling into the “boring” category. Last week he was moaning about the backlog of e-mails on his mobile phone and the fact that his PC’s printer would not work. Another tweet said simply “Hurrah for curry”.

Launched in 2006 Twitter, which allows users to post mini-updates of no more than 140 characters, has attracted an array of celebrities, politicians and pundits eager to connect with the masses.

However, in the process some public figures have left themselves open to embarrassment by posting revealing details or photographs, while others have been exposed to hate campaigns and venomous messages.

Fry would not be the first high-profile Twitter user to quit the site publicly. Lily Allen, the singer, revealed last month that she had deleted her account after a backlash against her support for penalising those who illegally download music.

Miley Cyrus, the American star of the Hannah Montana series, also quit Twitter last month, blaming tabloid newspapers for using her updates as source material for articles.

Cyrus, who now wants the site to be banned, posted a spoof rap-video in which she said: “Everything that I type and everything that I do, all those lame gossip sites take it and make it news.”

Last month Twitter announced that it is planning to allow its 55m global users to broadcast real-time video clips as well as short text messages. By allowing video on Twitter, its founders hope to make it fashionable again. The site has yet to make a profit, but it has been valued at £630m.