Ashton Kutcher: Twitter Got [Bleeped] Up by the Media

Actor and social-media pioneer believes that the microblogging site has devolved into a marketing hack job

By Alexis L. Loinaz May 24, 2013 8:14 PMTags
Ashton KutcherLondon Entertainment / Splash

Seems like Ashton Kutcher needs way more than 140 characters to express his fired-up sentiments about Twitter these days.

The celeb social-media pioneer—who was one of the first stars to truly harness Twitter's potential as a mammoth networking tool to connect with fans—is now slamming the microblogging site for what he considers its devolution into a publicity and marketing hack job.

Kutcher uncorked his verbose thoughts Thursday at the CTIA wireless industry trade show in Las Vegas, where he was invited to participate in an onstage interview.

"For lack of a better verb, the media came and f--ked it up," Mila Kunis' beau ranted about Twitter to conference attendees, per CNN. "When I first got on, it felt like the democratization of media. Now it just feels like media."

But he didn't stop there.

"The bigger vision for Twitter when Jack [Dorsey] created it was to empower communication to happen as things were taking place," Kutcher added. "Now it's just a bunch of companies and people constantly pitching crap."

Kutcher—who, incidentally, plays Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic Jobs—was an early adopter to Twitter, becoming the first user to amass a million followers. That number continues to balloon: It's now up to 14.3 million, and he remains one of the most-followed users on the site.

Still, Kutcher hasn't lost all hope for social media: He waxed enthusiastic about Facebook, calling it a "new religion" that creates a true sense of community.

"It is a deeper trust bond that I have with someone," the 35-year-old Kutcher said.

Singing Facebook's praises? Why, that's so 2004, it's almost quaintly vintage-chic. Now that we like.