Rupert Murdoch has launched an attack on Facebook after it was revealed that it had overtaken MySpace as the most popular social network.

According to figures from ComScore, Facebook received 123.9 million unique visitors in May compared to MySpace's 114.6 million.

It was revealed that Facebook had grown by 162 per cent year on year, compared to a growth of just five per cent for MySpace.

The owner of NewsCorp, who bought the social networking site in 2005 for $580 million, said that Facebook had "done a great job of being flavor of the month in the last six years of last month".

Murdoch, speaking during an advertising festival in Cannes, accused the rival social network of being little more than a "directory", claiming that his site made more money and kept visitors online for longer.

Reuters also reports that Facebook has launched a new version to attract visitors in China. Users on the mainland of the country are redirected to a site in a simplified version of the language used in the area. There is also a version in traditional Chinese.