Now this is not an unnatural occurrence as I am an avid follower of Twitter – even if I’m not much of a tweeter myself. What was a big deal, however, was what I found on my feed. As I’m sure many of you know, Joeseph Paterno – the head football coach for Penn State – was fired last night in relation to the cover-up of multiple accounts of child molestation by a former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.
But I’m not going to go into that.
What I want to bring up is the reaction that followed on Twitter. Some tweeters defended Paterno – though most maligned him. “Jo Pa” and “Penn State” were trending topics – it seemed like everyone had an opinion on the matter.
One particular opinion stood out.
Former 70s Show & Two-And-A-Half Men star Ashton Kutcher tweeted the following in response to the news that Paterno had been fired:
@aplusk: How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste
Almost immediately angry replies swarmed the “@aplusk” feed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Tweeters replied, outraged. With over 8 million followers, Kutcher quickly realized his gaffe. Within minutes he posted an apology and claimed ignorance to the details surrounding the firing of Jo Paterno.
But it was too late.
Screen caps of the offending tweet were everywhere even after it had been deleted. Facebook, Tumblr, and various other social networks spread it like a wildfire – all in under less than an hour. As I watched this unfold I couldn’t help but think about the permanence of posting on the internet. Anything that is posted can be stored by practically anyone. Facebook photos, tweets, blog posts – once put out they are extremely difficult to take back. Much like the library of Babel from our first discussion, we have reached a time where it is possible to record almost everything.
The question now is how do we deal with that? What are we going to do knowing that everything we put out has the possibility of never being forgotten?
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/sports/ncaafootball/penn-states-joe-paterno-wants-to-retire-at-end-of-season.html
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/story/2011-11-09/Joe-Paterno-fired-Penn-State/51147098/1
https://twitter.com/#!/aplusk
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