A humbled and apologetic Ashton Kutcher is quitting Twitter for good after he got blasted by a firestorm of responses for tweeting one message too many without knowing what he was talking about.
Ashton, not being informed about the Penn State scandal tweeted, “This is an insane story, I just heard paterno was fired, getting the rest of the story now…” Unfortunately for Ashton, he followed that with, “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”
Well, as soon as he typed those words, he got hit with a plethora of angry Tweets which called him all kinds of names for not knowing what he is talking about. You can read some of the tweets below and Ashton’s response to each.
Kutcher explained later that he had simply read a headline on TV that Paterno had been fired. Without knowing any details, he sent the two tweets. He didn’t become aware of the circumstances surrounding the Penn State former head coach’s firing and the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case that served as a catalyst for the dismissal until a short time later. And it was too late to prevent a Twitter mob attack.
Ashton later apologized after getting the full story on Penn State and has now handed his Twitter account over to his management. Early on Nov. 10, Ashton tweeted, “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case. 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.”
Ashton later blogged: “Up until today I have posted virtually everyone of my tweets on my own, but clearly the platform has become too big to be managed by a single individual…I feel responsible for delivering an informed opinion and not spreading gossip or rumors through my Twitter feed.”
Ashton continued, “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.”
Ashton apologized again, saying that he’s “truly sorry if I offended anyone.” He said Katalyst Media will now manage his account “to ensure the quality of its content.”
Here are Ashton’s responses to some of the Tweets that resulted in his becoming a Twitter quitter (Ashton’s responses in bold):
“U r right, I need 2b more responsible 4 my voice @kaykaymour: maybe you should use your brain & get the facts b4 u tweet like an idiot.”
“there is truth in that, I make mistakes @timothyfurey: @aplusk you’re an idiot”
“I’ll own that @Dustin_Scott: Bad attempt at trying to save it.. You’re still an asshole RT Had no idea, thought it was a football thing.”
“true f me @NikkiLynette: #FuckYouAshtonKutcher for Tweeting your opinion to 8 million people before u had your facts straight.”
“honestly it’s me @RightGirl: Who is more ignorant? @Aplusk, or the over EIGHT MILLION idiots who follow him?”
“agreed @tommiesunshine: @aplusk with 8 million followers, you MAY want to reserve your opinions until you know the whole story.”
