When Ashton Kutcher saw on the news that Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had been fired, he did what he usually does and headed to Twitter.
The Two and a Half Men star tweeted “How do you fire Jo Pa?” Little did he know the background on the story and exactly why the coach was fired. Needless to say, some of his 8 million Twitter followers were infuriated.
One user tweeted, “Who is more ignorant? @Aplusk, or the over EIGHT MILLION idiots who follow him?” Kutcher replied back with “honestly it’s me.”
Another person tweeted, “with 8 million followers, you MAY want to reserve your opinions until you know the whole story.” With Kutcher replying with an “agreed.”
All of these tweets have been erased from his feed.
As most of you probably know, Paterno was fired over how he handled child sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach. Kutcher somehow missed that part of the story.
So, what does a celebrity do after a huge snafu like this one? He hires a Twitter Management team, which some are calling a huge mistake.
In a post titled “Twitter Management” Kutcher explained the situation and reasoning behind his decision. He talks about the fact that he has posted virtually every single one of his tweets on his own, but feels now that 8 million followers is too hard for one guy to manage.
A collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted. I feel responsible to deliver informed opinions and not spread gossip or rumors through my twitter feed. While I feel that running this feed myself gives me a closer relationship to my friends and fans I’ve come to realize that it has grown into more than a fun tool to communicate with people. While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk, I’m going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst as a secondary editorial measure, to ensure the quality of its content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I offended. It was a mistake that will not happen again.
One of Kutcher’s latest tweets was “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.” I guess this is possibly his last tweet done by him and him only?
Is Ashton Kutcher making a mistake and committing Twitter suicide? Sound off in the comments.
Image Source: Twitter
I kind of think it’s a cop-out. Does it really matter if he has 8 million or 8? And does it matter if some of those gazillion people “unfollow” him?
IMO, he got those followers by being who he is. If he makes a mistake, and owns up to it. then people will still continue to follow and respect him.
My guess is 95% or more of his twitter followers have no idea what a twitter management team is and will never know the difference. Of course social media insiders are upset. They want everyone to be real and transparent 100% of the time. It seems to me from your post and from others I have read Julie that Ashton is trying to do the responsible thing. Is it a mistake? probably. But a well meaning one.
I have mixed feelings about this story because I don’t like to see people censoring what they think because they’re afraid of po’ing the internets. And not just censoring it, but letting others take control. In this case, Aston may not have known the whole story, but the firing of JoePa was really controversial. Lots of people DO know the whole story and don’t support it. So, I think if he thought it, he was right to say it – or he shouldn’t have said anything at all. Lisa Baron (and lots of others) talked about this topic at BWELA – showing the part of you that you want people to see while still being authentic. I just don’t like the idea of anyone saying something they don’t believe or wouldn’t normally say because they want to placate their followers.
I also have mixed feelings as well. Did he tweet about something he didn’t have the full story on? Obviously, yes. But he admitted his mistakes and now it’s time to move on. I think we all know he’s not advocating that sex abuse is okay.
The fact he’s going to have someone else tweet for him almost makes it not worth following him anymore. People follow him because they like to hear what HE has to say, not some management team. But I can also understand how he wouldn’t want something like this to happen again.
It will be interesting to follow his tweets and see what happens after this blows over. And it WILL blow over because tomorrow, someone else will say something stupid….or get divorced after 72 days. 🙂
@JulieBonner Ha! Those darn 72 days 🙂 And yes. I don’t want to follow a management team. Kind of defeats the purpose – even if you can never tell!
he should move to google+ and drop facebook and twitter.