It sounds like such an innocent idea, one rooted in "fairness" and wrapped in good intentions. An internet "ministry of truth," run either by the federal government or the United Nations, to protect against "misinformation and rumors" that find their way to the information superhighway.
Such an agency "would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn't think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out."
No, that's not Russia's Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Hu Jintao making that absurd suggestion. That one came from former President Bill Clinton, the man who lied to the American public about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. If such an agency would have been in existence during his tenure, you have to think he would have been convicted during his impeachment trial in the Senate for sure.
A truth ministry would operate something like the BBC or perhaps National Public Radio (no bias there), Clinton said, and its scope would be narrowly defined to "not express opinions" and to identify "relevant factual errors." Clinton, of course, does not go on to say who gets to define what a "factual error" is, but we presume it would be the commies who run this agency.