Ashton Kutcher can no longer think for himself. After expressing outrage about Joe Paterno’s firing and then being informed as to why he was fired and being made to look like a doofus, Kutcher has decided that he needed to protect his image and has decided to filter his thoughts through his management before they’re posted on Twitter.
Up until today I have posted virtually every one of my tweets on my own, but clearly the platform has become to big to be managed by a single individual. When I started using twitter it was a communication platform that people could say what they are thinking in real time and if their facts where wrong the community would quickly and helpfully reframe an opinion. It was a conversation, a community driven education tool, and opinion center that encouraged healthy debate. It seems that today that twitter has grown into a mass publishing platform, where ones tweets quickly become news that is broadcasted around the world and misinformation becomes volatile fodder for critics. APlusK
Wait, what? Is he specifically talking about his tweet, “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste,” becoming volatile fodder? Geez, it was just a comment that made you look stupid for a second. Calm down, buddy.
Last night after returning home from work I walked by the television and simply saw a headline that Joe Paterno had been fired. Having no more information than that, I assumed that he had been fired due to poor performance as an aging coach. As a football fan and someone who had watched Joe’s career move from that of legend/innovator to a head coach that fulfilled his duty in the booth, I assumed that the university had let him go due to football related issues. With that assumption (how dare I assume) I posted a tweet defending his career. I then when about my evening, had some dinner, did a little work, and about an hour later turned on ESPN where I got the full story. I quickly went back on my twitter account and found a hailstorm of responses calling me an “idiot” and several other expletives that I’ve become accustom to hearing for almost anything I post. I quickly retracted and deleted my previous post, however that didn’t seem enough to satisfy people’s outrage at my misinformed post. I truly am sorry if I offended anyone and more over am going to take action to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
For a guy who’s an advocate against child sex trafficking, you’d assume he’d heard about this from his people. Guess not.
A collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted. I feel responsible for delivering an informed opinion and not spreading 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 that 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 Media to ensure the quality of it’s content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I have offended. It was a mistake that I don’t think will happen again.
This is why Twitter sucks. Most celebrities now have their stream managed by someone specifically hired to make sure they don’t look like an idiot. God forbid a famous person looks human once in a while. How low must your self-esteem be that instead of just laughing it off you have to hire an entire management team to protect your image.
I have an idea Ashton. Don’t react until you know what’s going on
Forget the twitter thing, clearly he wrote it and looked foolish for a minute. But what I’d really like to know is who wrote that blog post. I doubt he’s that eloquent and concise.