As the fallout from the sex scandal at Penn State University continues to be a topic for both the college football world and the social media universe it is public knowledge that a well-known actor is pulling back on his initial Twitter comment regarding the matter.
As reported in numerous media outlets, “Two and a Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher, an advocate in fighting child sexual abuse, has publically apologized for his first tweet on Wednesday (Nov. 9) regarding the firing of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.
Paterno, although not implicated first-hand in the scandal, is viewed by many as not having done enough when allegations first surfaced years ago regarding alleged sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky, a coach on Paterno’s squad at the time.
So, when Kutcher, who has some 8 million followers on Twitter took to tweeting Wednesday, he fired off, “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”
Kutcher Punts and Regroups
In turn, Kutcher, a well-versed social media individual, eventually got wind of the full story involving Paterno’s dismissal, along with that of the school’s president. He then followed up the first tweet with, “Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet! Didn’t have full story.”
The initial tweet and Kutcher’s acknowledgment of tweeting before knowing all of the details involving the dismissal of Paterno in Happy Valley were later deleted from his account, especially given the fact he was called an idiot and several expletives by his followers.
Kutcher did tell the public “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.”
Something else that changed with Kutcher’s Twitter account as of Nov. 10 is that he is reportedly taking a siesta from overseeing his Twitter account by himself, even going so far as to have his management team, Katalyst, manage his account for him going forward.
Are we to assume that Kutcher is either?
- A. Incapable of thinking on his own and tweeting or
- B. Trying to cover his fanny so that he does not lose a portion of his fan base and potentially tons of money if fans turn their backs on him.
As Kutcher went on to tell the media, he first heard of Paterno’s ouster as head coach, a position the game’s coaching victories leader held since 1966, after returning from work. Kutcher claims he simply made an assumption that Paterno was fired due to his performance as a coach. That sounds a tad strange given that Penn State is 8-1 this season and unbeaten in conference play to date.
In a tweet that appears on Kutcher’s timeline for Thursday (Nov. 10), a portion of it notes during a long message, “Up until today, I have posted virtually every one of my tweets on my own, but clearly the platform has become to (sic) big to be managed by a single individual. I truly am sorry if I offended anyone and more over am going to take action to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
What Can We Draw from Kutcher?
In looking at the Kutcher tweeting issue, I come to several conclusions:
- He is obviously concerned about the backlash he was initially getting, so he reacted. I’m not saying he is not genuine in his convictions to fight child sexual abuse, but this is also a PR move to keep his image from suffering more following the recent allegations of infidelity in his marriage to Demi Moore;
- Tweeting takes all of seconds or a minute or two at most. Kutcher not wanting to tweet moving forward is certainly not a time issue. The time issue becomes when he has to circle the wagons and explain himself;
- While a number of well-known individuals have taken to Twitter in the last 24 hours both supporting and opposing Paterno’s dismissal, it is folks like Kutcher who lose some credibility when they then turn to others to essentially manage their communications efforts.
No matter what comes of the Penn State sex scandal, one thing is for sure, the social media world has certainly been engrossed with it from the kick off.
Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ background checks, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.
About Dave Thomas
The problem with celebs tweeting is that they are too lazy to read other people’s tweets! had he just taken less than one minute to look at the feed around Joe Pa he would have realized the overwhelming public reaction!
I joked with a friend that celebs can’t have “bad opinions.” But, like Miguel said, if he’d educated himself on the situation before saying something this entire situation could have been avoided.