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Comment by mplanchard | Hacker News Reader

There’s a difference between you or I saying something incorrect (willfully or not) on the Internet and a world leader doing the same. Twitter already distinguishes famous people, world leaders, etc. in a variety of ways. It seems reasonable that this would be one of them, given that the potential reach and impact of anything they say far, far exceeds that of your average Tweeter.

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Is there, though? Why should Twitter be in charge of deciding who's a world leader or famous enough to get checked?

Who is Twitter to fact-check world leaders?

When world leaders rarely tell the truth, how can anyone realistically think that such a system could even work, even if it made sense?

Well, here's the funny bit: Twitter doesn't need to decide. If someone in a major power, such as a G20 member country, is in a government position, they are a world leader. And because things are always contested, that same category can be extended to high-ranking members of opposition.

I'm going to take you at your word and accept that world leaders rarely tell the truth: so they should ALL get the same treatment then. But instead of stamping their output with just "fact-check this", why not unilaterally label all of it with: "may contain lies, omissions and half-truths"?

> why not unilaterally label all of it with: "may contain lies, omissions and half-truths"?

Even if Twitter's motive was to help its users, that's just common sense. Does Twitter have such a low opinion of its users that it needs to treat them like 5-year-olds?

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