Celebrity spats thrive on Twitter

It's not every mother who airs family grievances online. But when Courtney Love heard rumors that Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters frontman, had made advances on her 19-year-old daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, which Ms. Cobain and Mr. Grohl denied, she blasted him on Twitter.

"Well if bean did have sex with @davidgrohl," Ms. Love wrote on Twitter using her private account Cbabymichelle, "it's fine on her part, he's insane."

Leave it to her daughter to respond the old-fashioned way, with a statement issued by her publicist. "My mother should be banned from Twitter," Ms. Cobain said in part.

Banning celebrities from Twitter won't be easy. By giving the famous and those who aspire to be an unfettered soapbox from which to spout, Twitter has become a platform for celebrities' public spats.

To wit, the blogosphere is already awash in Top 10 lists of such Twitter feuds. Recent additions: earlier this month, Judd Apatow was tired of hearing Howard Stern talk about "America's Got Talent" on his radio show. (Mr. Stern will be a judge on the television show.) "Too much synergy," Mr. Apatow wrote on Twitter to his 490,000-plus followers. Mr. Stern fired back on his show using language that is mostly unprintable here.

In February, Phil Brooks, the wrestler known as C. M. Punk, took to Twitter to say he wanted to "curb stomp" Chris Brown, the singer, for assaulting Rihanna in 2009. "I would like @chrisbrown," Mr. Brooks wrote to his 849,000-plus followers, to "fight somebody that can defend themselves." Mr. Brown reportedly replied on Twitter, writing that "@CMpunk needs more followers" (Mr. Brown has 9.5 million) before accusing Mr. Brooks of taking steroids. Mr. Brooks denied taking steroids. (The post has since been removed.)

Politicians are not immune to Twitter bickering. Campaigns aides to President Obama and Mitt Romney have sniped at one another on topics as disparate as Hilary Rosen's attack on Ann Romney for never working, and which candidate is friendlier to dogs.

While they may seem harmless, Twitter feuds can have real-world consequences. Last year, Ms. Love paid $430,000 to Dawn Simorangkir, a fashion designer, following a dispute on Twitter in 2009 over payment for a dress; the lawyer for the designer said Ms. Love had called her a "whore" and a "convicted prostitute."

The list of fallout is long - from corporate firings to monetary fines. With such consequences, why would anyone start a Twitter feud?

"It's a combination of self-importance gone awry, the headiness of having followers, the lack of self-censorship and wanting to draw attention to one's self," said Carole Lieberman, a Beverly Hills, Calif., psychiatrist who has A-list stars among her patients.

"It's not really to communicate some bone of contention, it's to humiliate the person in front of the whole world," she said. "Social media in general, and Twitter in particular, is the coward's way of expressing yourself."