Stars start to think before they tweet

CELEBRITIES may want to resist the urge to send a stream of consciousness on Twitter in the New Year after so many of them tweeted their way into trouble on everything from boxer briefs to breast-feeding in 2011.

Nascar driver Kasey Kahne became the latest celebrity to blunder on Twitter, when he had to apologise for a tweet critical of public breast-feeding. But Kahne has been far from alone in discovering Twitter’s pitfalls. Last year saw US congressman Anthony Weiner resign in a scandal that began with an errant tweet, and the musings of Hollywood stars such as Ashton Kutcher generated public controversy.

2011 may be seen as a turning point when more celebrities and politicians saw the dangers of Twitter and quit sending unfiltered messages. Handlers are likely to play a larger role in managing the stars’ Twitter accounts.

“There was a time from 2008 to 2011 where Twitter was like, whatever was on your mind you tweeted about it — literally mindlessly,” said Cooper Lawrence, author of The Cult of Celebrity. “Now you’re going to see the other side of the bell curve, where people are more cautious. Politicians are already more cautious.”

Probably the greatest self-inflicted Twitter wound was suffered by Anthony Weiner. He was an influential Democratic congressman from New York until June, when he tweeted a photo of his bulging underwear to a female college student. At first Weiner claimed his Twitter account had been hacked, but later admitted he was responsible and resigned from office.

“That guy has become now the patron saint of warning people that communicating from the id, which is exactly what Twitter is designed to do, can end up being a really, really bad idea,” said Bob Thompson, professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University.

Comedian Gilbert Gottfried did not have his career ruined by Twitter but it cost him a lucrative gig. Gottfried fired off several joke tweets in March about the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. One read: “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.”

Gottfried was roundly criticised in the media and insurance company Aflac fired him as the voice of its iconic duck in adverts.

“Being the Aflac voice was a large portion of his income and not being able to do that for years and years to come is going to cost him millions of dollars,” said Jo Piazza, author of Celebrity, Inc: How Famous People Make Money.

Kutcher had been a master of Twitter before his miscue. He also created the online production company Katalyst and embarked on lucrative promotion campaigns. In November, Kutcher created uproar when he tweeted a defence of revered Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who was fired in the fallout from a sexual abuse scandal.

Kutcher apologised in a blog post and said he did not know about the abuse scandal when he sent the off-the-cuff tweet that read, “How do you fire Jo Pa?” He also pledged to have his staff at Katalyst manage his Twitter account, as opposed to posting on his own as he had done before.

Experts say Kutcher’s Twitter mistake and his decision to alter the way he uses the site could serve as a lesson to others. “Because after all, he is a master of the form,” Thompson said.

The controversy surrounding Kahne shows that not only a celebrity’s tweet but also the response to other online commentators can generate trouble. He originally posted a comment about encountering a mother breast-feeding at a supermarket. “Took second look because I was obviously seeing things. I wasn’t!” he wrote.

Other notable Twitter controversies of 2011 include film critic Roger Ebert’s tweet, “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive,” which was sent in response to the impaired-driving death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn.

Actor Charlie Sheen last month revealed his phone number in a tweet, in an apparent attempt to send it privately to Justin Bieber.