Thank for the suggestion. I will add my proposal to the microsyntax wiki. I do believe it may be too complex of a proposal to catch on. The most important issue is discussing the need for proper disclosure coding in a microblogging context.

Your spot on in your assessment of the potential pitfalls of using tweet-specific disclosure hashtags in general. Extending your retweet scenario, what would the potential FTC ramifications be of someone RTing a tweet that originally included a disclosure hashtag but was removed due to space limitations? Could the OT (original tweeter) be improperly accused of tweeting without disclosure?

The other issue with my proposed hashtags is the use of the dollar sign. I’m not sure how Twitter will treat that symbol in searches—although it should be okay since the pound sign is parsed correctly.

Just got around to reading this post.

The idea is interesting, and I suggest that you document it on the microsyntax wiki: http://microsyntax.pbworks.com.

My initial feedback is that these tags don’t connect to normal conventions very clearly, and would mostly confuse people. I think you are right that if they were widely adopted and became a standard convention, that issue might go away, but you should never underestimate how hard it is to get people to adopt a new behavior!

Instead, I think a better general practice is to use the URL field in the Twitter bio to link to a personal homepage, and from there, link to a disclosure statement. It’s not ideal, and it’s somewhat removed from the point of interaction, but one of the issues with embedding the disclosure in a tweet itself is the consequence of retweets or quoted tweets… that is, what happens when I retweet you with YOUR disclosure in my tweet? Although I wasn’t paid (let’s say) that creates kind of a weird situation, does it not?

Perhaps a simpler approach (though longer) would be to just use the #paidendorsement hashtag?