Harry Styles tweet is most retweeted in the UK but Ellen keeps her crown as Oscars selfie is most retweeted ever

It has been a big year for Twitter, after the Ellen DeGeneres mass-selfie at the the Oscars and Princes William and Harry posing at an event at Buckingham Palace, the Queen also sent her first tweet.

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While the ultimate Oscars selfie was the most shared in the world, it was One Direction and the World Cup that dominated Twitter in the UK in 2014 in what was overall "the year of the selfie", new statistics for the social media giant show.

A seemingly innocuous celebration of 1D's four years together by singer Harry Styles was the most retweeted tweet by a UK account in 2014, while the band between them have five of the most followed British accounts.

Tweeters' love of selfies continued, with the term "selfie" mentioned 92 million times by the social network's 284 million active global users, an increase of 500% on 2013, Twitter said.

In news events, the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was the most talked about by UK users, followed by the Scottish independence vote, the inquest of Mark Duggan, who was shot by police, and the deaths of comics Robin Williams and Joan Rivers.

And despite England's dismal performances and early flight home, the Brazil World Cup broke records to become the most tweeted about subject globally, and its matches were six of the top 10 most mentioned events in the UK.

Germany's 7-1 demolition of Brazil in the World Cup semi-final on July 8 was the single most tweeted about event by UK users, Twitter said.

The top ten Twitter accounts in the world are:

• Katy Perry - 61m

• Justin Bieber - 57m

• Barack Obama - 51m

• Taylor Swift - 48m

• YouTube - 47m

• Lady Gaga - 43m

• Britney Spears - 40m

• Justin Timberlake - 38.5m

• Rihanna - 38m

• Instagram - 36m