Kutcher Paterno Tweet: Ashton Kutcher Practices Unsafe Tweeting

Listen, kids. Whatever you do, make sure to practice safe tweeting at all times. 

This is an amazing time when thoughts and opinions can be delivered in a moment to the entire world. The benefits are immense. But as we saw last night, the fallout from a misguided tweet could be huge. 

Ashton Kutcher had everyone in the nation slapping their heads in amazement when he tweeted support for Joe Paterno and venom for the Board of Trustees that fired him. This is the tweet as reported by Yahoo News. 

"

How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste

"

As soon as that tweet went out, the man who was considered a master of Twitter was berated by his followers for being, well, an idiot. At the very least they chided him for ignorance at not knowing why Paterno was dismissed. 

After learning that Paterno allegedly heard about minors being sexually abused and doing the bare minimum in reporting it, Kutcher took down the tweet and apologized to anyone that would hear it. 

E! Online reports Kutcher will also discontinue tweeting, he says, "until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won't happen again."

The obvious question that comes flooding in is why Kutcher would dare comment on something that he has no knowledge of. That, folks, is lesson No. 1 on Twitter. 

If you are going to blab about something and put some spice to it, make sure that you actually have a modicum of knowledge on what was going on. 

The Yahoo report quotes Kutcher explaining how all this came about:

"

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. 

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This begs the second question. How did a maestro of Twitter not hear about the scandal that was occurring in Happy Valley? 

The nation has been gripped by what has been taking place in what used to be the most quaint community in college football for close to a week now. 

Kutcher proved that Twitter is a powerful tool that can be a tremendous benefit or an enormous device geared to failure. 

On Wednesday night, Ashton Kutcher sent a few characters to the masses. On Thursday, he was labeled an idiot, all because he didn't go the extra mile in making sure he knew what the hell he was actually talking about. 

Practice safe Tweeting, kids. You don't want to grow up and become Ashton Kutcher.