Bill Clinton Suggests Internet Anti-Rumor Agency, Can You Say Irony?

I heard the whole interview on Friday. In short, former President Clinton believes that there should be an agency started by the United States or the UN that would determine if internet rumors were true or not. If you have wet your pant laughing, you may take a moment before you continue reading. Can you imagine the guy who came out on a presidential address and lied to the American people, now claiming that we should censor what is acceptable to accuse people of?

One of his arguments involved influencing the stock market, which I write quite a lot about on this site. He brought up the practice of profiteering off of rumors. How this essentially works is quite simple. Someone decides to bet that a stock will go down. They then go out and start a negative rumor about the stock in hopes of dropping the price. If they succeed they will make some good money.

This is a stupid argument because I have no sympathy for investors that panic and sell on unsubstantiated rumors. An investor should have faith in their calculations and only sell on verified news.

This sounds to me like the start down a huge slippery slope of internet censorship. The most ironic part is that Hillary Clinton has been a huge supporter of open internet. Famous people have always dealt with tabloids spreading preposterous rumors about them. The internet is no different and it should be up the the judgment of the reader. Any respected news outlet will be forced to validate their sources or nobody will trust their info, therefore the problem takes care of itself.

Personally, I think Clinton just wishes he had the ability to kill rumors during his scandal days before they had gotten out of control. Find a new cause Bill, like bringing all the jobs back you sent to China. Yeah, there is a rumor you don’t want people to realize is true.