Former President Barack Obama issues some advice: "Think before you tweet"
Obama also mentioned that he has close to 100m followers on the platform.
Former President Barack Obama did not directly mention his successor, President Donald Trump, during a leadership forum in India, but many saw veiled suggestions from one president to another. Obama sat down to talk at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Dehli as part of a current tour.
Obama has some words of wisdom on the use of social media, something for which his successor is notorious. He said that his daughters were surprised when he told them to always use spellcheck and punctuation.
He added, according to a report from the Associated Press, that some people get in trouble for their tweets and that the old adage of think before you speak applies just in kind. "Think before you tweet," the former president commented.
Staying on Twitter, another comment might even be seen as a surprisingly personal jibe at Trump, famously obsessed with his ratings. "And look, I've got 100 million Twitter followers." Obama said, "I actually have more than other people who use it more often."
Obama currently has around 97.4m followers on the social media platform, more than double Trump's 43.8m. Along with the follower count, Obama also has several of the most liked tweets of all time - include the top spot for a tweet including a picture of him looking into a window with several babies and the quote: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..."
Along with his social media advice, Obama spoke about climate change, saying that while he could speak to people about the economic arguments around cutting fossil fuel usage, "if you're saying it's a hoax, then there's no way for us to bridge our differences in a constructive way." Trump has previously said that climate change is a hoax.
The former president also said that he believes politicians are generally a mirror "of forces in the society". "[I]f you see a politician doing things that are questionable, one of the things as a citizen is to ask yourself 'Am I encouraging, or supporting or giving license to the values I'm hearing out of the politician?' he said.
