Ashton Kutcher Leaves Twitter After Joe Paterno Tweet

Posted on Thu Nov 10th, 2011 11:15am PDT       By X17 Staff

Ashton Kutcher was once a pioneer of Twitter. In 2009 he challenged CNN to see who could reach 1 million followers first, and won.

Two short years later, he has more than 8 million followers and, especially with recent months of heated news over his alleged cheating on wife Demi Moore, his Twitter account is monitored constantly by the media and fans.

On Wednesday, the actor got major heat for Tweeting that Penn State University coach Joe Paterno's firing was unfair. Kutcher, an advocate in the fight against child sex abuse, quickly apologized (also via Twitter.) He said he did not know the full story -- that Paterno allegedly ignored that one of his assistant coaches had sexually abused young boys.

On Thursday, Kutcher Tweeted a blog post in which he says that Twitter has become too much for him, and he will handle the management feed over to his production company team, Katalyst Media.

"As of immediately I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. ... twitter has grown into a mass publishing platform, where ones tweets quickly become news that is broadcasted around the world ... I feel responsible for delivering an informed opinion and not spreading gossip or rumors through my twitter feed."

Kutcher said he instantly received, "... a hailstorm of responses calling me an 'idiot' and several other expletives that I've become accustom to hearing for almost anything I post" after the Paterno Tweet.

Read Kutcher's full blog after the jump.

"
Twitter Management

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.

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.

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."

Poll

What do you think of Ashton Kutcher's initial Tweet supporting Penn State's Joe Paterno?

	Honest mistake! He didn't digest the whole story before Tweeting.
	What a douche! Typical Ashton doesn't have regard for anyone but himself.
	Twitter is a bad idea. Period.

Vote See Results