WATCH: The Daily Show tells Hillary Clinton how to win Twitter

(Image credit: Daily Show)

last updated 8 January 2015

The main theme of Thursday night's Daily Show was gay rights — summer host John Oliver is obviously a supporter, as are most Daily Show viewers, demographically and based on audience reaction. Oliver takes a rhetorical cudgel to the Boy Scouts, Pat Robertson, Russia's Vladimir Putin, the Vatican (the buildings, not the religion), and, especially, France. (Watch below.)

Showing some flamboyantly dressed demonstrators taking to the streets over France's recent legalization of same-sex marriage, Oliver wonders: "How is it that France's anti-gay protests look so much gayer than our pro-gay protests?"

But Oliver and "senior social media correspondent" Jessica Williams also have a delightful segment on Hillary Clinton joining Twitter this week. (Watch above.) Oliver pillories the breathless media reaction to Clinton's jump into the microblogging platform, then turns the show over to Williams for tips on how Clinton can use Twitter to her best advantage.

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Williams has five suggestions, keying off notable mistakes made by prominent politicians. You surely guessed that Anthony Wiener is in there, as are Newt Gingrich (boring), Newark Mayor Cory Booker (super-heroic), and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose Twitter ramblings Williams calls "weird" but we call poetic.

Twitter can help you reach your constituents in ways that are beneficial to everyone, Williams says, but there are dangers lurking in those 140-character missives. "Let me put it in terms that Hillary Clinton would understand," she concludes. "Hillary, girl: Being on Twitter is like having 100 Benghazi hearings every single day."

Here, Oliver waves the flag for gay rights:

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.