In the wake of a Twitter goof, Ashton Kutcher said he’s turning over the management of his @aplusk Twitter account to his team at Katalyst Media. It all started last night when Kutcher said he discovered that Penn St. Coach 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,” he later explained on his blog.
Miffed that Paterno was out, Kutcher tweeted, “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.” And as you might imagine, the Twittersphere blasted him for his apparent insensitivity to the child sex abuse scandal that has consumed the football program. To make matters worse, Kutcher wasn’t checking Twitter.
“About an hour later [I] turned on ESPN where I got the full story,” Kutcher explains. “I quickly retracted and deleted my previous post, however that didn’t seem enough to satisfy people’s outrage at my misinformed post.” He sent the follow-up tweet, “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.”
Today Kutcher — who’s TV’s biggest social media star — says he’s handing over the management of his account to the social marketing firm he co-founded. “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,” he writes. “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.”
What do you think? Right move?