14 DAY TRIAL // Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach, has been fired in what is the biggest child abuse scandal of our times. Actor Ashton Kutcher took to Twitter to defend him – but then retracted his initial tweet and eventually decided to tweet no more.
As the Penn State scandal rages on, with many voices saying Paterno knew of child abuse going on in the shower locker-room and tried to cover it up, Kutcher was one of the few people to come to his defense – and he did it in front of over 8 million people, his Twitter followers.
“How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste,” he initially wrote.
His comment caused an Internet storm, with many accusing him (rightly so) that he was defending a child abuser, when Ashton himself is involved in various programs aiming to combat child abuse and trafficking.
Realizing he'd spoken (written) without knowing the context of Paterno's firing, Ashton returned to Twitter, deleted the original post and explained how he came to put his foot in his mouth.
“Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet! Didn't have full story. #admitwhenyoumakemistakes As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case,” he wrote.
“As of immediately I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won't happen again,” he added.
In a lengthy blog post, Ashton offers more details about what happened: he didn't know anything about the ongoing scandal and he returned home and saw a headline that Paterno had been fired.
He assumed that he'd been let go because of his age, which didn't sit well with him, so he made sure he told his fans and followers about it.
Only a few hours later did Ashton learn the real reason why Paterno had been fired, so he made sure he set the record straight on where he stood.
Nevertheless, because Twitter is now such a huge platform and because anything he says on it becomes News in a matter of minutes, Ashton is now handing his feed over to his management team.
“Up until today, I have posted virtually every one of my tweets on my own, but clearly the platform has become too big to be managed by a single individual,” the actor writes.
“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,” he further says.
“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,” Ashton says before apologizing once more.