[Adam Ward]

LONDON (Reuters) - Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct. That is the sort of service Google Inc. boss Eric Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.

Politicians have yet to appreciate the impact of the online world, which will also affect the outcome of elections, Schmidt said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Wednesday.

He predicted that "truth predictor" software would, within five years, "hold politicians to account." People would be able to use programs to check seemingly factual statements against historical data to see to see if they were correct.

"One of my messages to them (politicians) is to think about having every one of your voters online all the time, then inputting 'is this true or false.' We (at Google) are not in charge of truth but we might be able to give a probability," he told the newspaper.

SOURCE

[Leader]

(Sarcasm) Oh, that's just what we need. Google interfering in politics! (/sarcasm)

[begabloomers]

We have a PM who made "core promises", then broke them before the next election, and this faux pas was capitalized on by the main opposition party, but his ( still in power party ) government romped it in at the election.

Either people really don't care
Expect nothing less than lies from politicians
Only care about the bottom line ( low interest rates have kept this govt in power by the mortgage belt votes)

It's not even a matter of most people being apathetic and not voting, because as far as i am aware we are the only democracy where voting is compulsory for every citizen over 18 years of age.

Its a nice concept - a useful tool - but how effective it would be is another matter

Woops, just read the thread header - this is the daily chuckle replace that emoticon

[ClickChick]

Now that's funny stuff!