diff --git a/mitterlib/network/twitter.py b/mitterlib/network/twitter.py
index 2d695cb..3e6a87b 100644
--- a/mitterlib/network/twitter.py
+++ b/mitterlib/network/twitter.py
@@ -137,8 +137,6 @@ class TwitterNetworkData(NetworkData):
         self.link = 'http://twitter.com/%s/status/%s' % (
                 self.author.username, self.id)
 
-        self.reply_prefix = '@' + self.author.username + ' '
-
         if 'protected' in data['user']:
             # twitter protects all messages from a user, not per message.
             self.protected = data['user']['protected']
@@ -163,6 +161,10 @@ class TwitterNetworkData(NetworkData):
             # keep the message_time as is, so we have the retweet time, not he
             # original message time
 
+        # set the prefix here, so we can have the proper author even on
+        # reposts.
+        self.reply_prefix = '@' + self.author.username + ' '
+
         # Twitter encodes a lot of HTML entities, which are not good when
         # you want to *display* then (e.g., "<" returns to us as "&lt;").
         # So we convert this here. Interfaces need to worry about converting