Sir David Tang is incredibly well-connected, as anyone who doesn't already know is likely to discover within minutes of meeting the billionaire businessman, socialite and, as of last week, would-be internet entrepreneur. The gregarious restaurateur, born in Hong Kong but educated in England from the age of 13, slips in an account of a recent conversation with Henry Kissinger seconds after settling back in his comfortable chair at a central London members' club to discuss his new website, ICorrect.com. "I would say to Henry Kissinger – as I did – look, people will ask in generations to come, did you bomb Cambodia legally or illegally?" he recalls.
To be fair to Tang, who sold his fashion chain Shanghai Tang to luxury goods group Richemont in 2006, name-dropping has become something of an occupational hazard. He has spent weeks drumming up support for his venture, which gives the rich, powerful and influential a platform to respond to online slurs – for a $1,000 a year fee. "Only I know all these people and I have to go and see every one of them," he explains. "For the last two months I have seen every single person, from the most powerful to the most read and talked about to the most controversial."
Tang has smooth-talked or strong-armed many of them into becoming ICorrect members (or "correctors" as he prefers to call them). Bianca Jagger signed up and used the site to explode the myth that she rode into the infamous New York nightclub Studio 54 on a white horse semi-naked. ("I briefly mounted the horse, dressed in a full-length red Halston dress.") Tony Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell, Michael Caine and Stephen Fry have also used the site, which launched earlier this month.
ICorrect is easy to use, although it is currently populated almost exclusively by Tang's friends and acquaintances. An allegation or assertion is set out on the right-hand side, and a celebrity riposte posted next to it. Imagine a virtual version of a graffiti-strewn school toilet, with innuendo and gossip scrawled on the walls – only with space set aside for a right of reply from targets.
All hearsay
When Tang met Kissinger, the former US secretary of state told him to read his autobiography, as he had addressed the Cambodia question in the book. Tang, who does a passable impression of Nixon's former aide, waving his cigar around as he does so, retorted that no one will do so in the future. "The only filing system there is is this parallel space we call cyberspace," he says, and the information that exists in it, "is all hearsay. And that is the problem. If you don't correct things and you just leave them they will repeat themselves again and again and again. And that's it."
That is hardly a new phenomenon but Tang says public figures can now set the record straight for a small fee rather than resorting to the libel courts or the Press Complaints Commission. "If you're somebody to be reckoned with, [the annual fee] is how much it would cost to ring up the solicitor and ask them to write a standard letter."
Tang hopes the site will make money almost immediately as celebrities, sports stars, academics and politicians flock to it. He talks excitedly of global domination. "After I launch it in America I will go to China, Spain, France, Hong Kong. I'm going to have an Arabic [version]." Once he reaches a critical mass of users he believes he can sell members' details to companies who will pay handsomely for access to the world's most exclusive address book (apart from his own). "It will become the first luxury brand on the internet. That's the value, that's the potential."
It is tempting to dismiss ICorrect as a rich man's folly, a hobby for a semi-retired businessman whose companies run themselves (Tang is the exclusive Asian distributor for Havana cigars and owns the China Tang restaurant in London's Dorchester Hotel). Is this really a viable business proposition? Wikipedia is free, after all, and well-known figures – or their PR advisers – are free to visit the site and correct misinformation, while Twitter and Facebook allow celebrities to communicate directly with their public, managing their reputations in real time.
Tang dismisses Wikipedia on the basis that inaccuracies and untruths can be reinstated as well as removed. "Twitter is very impulsive and impermanent," he adds, "and you only have 140 characters. There is no greater 'Emperor' of Twitter than Stephen Fry. He went on ICorrect [and] he goes on for a long, long time. These are serious people who want to go on and explain themselves." Tang concedes well-known figures could use their own websites to right perceived wrongs, but says they are reluctant to do so. "Madonna wants to sell songs and concerts, not to engage in controversies about how she adopts African children. The Prince of Wales wants to promote his good works, not [talk] about the fact that he is a bit crazy talking to plants or eating seven boiled eggs for breakfast. There is a case for setting the negative aspect of your life apart and containing it; [putting it] into a corner to deal with it."
Politicians next
Tang hopes corporations will also sign up – paying $5,000 a year – and points out that Chelsea Football Club, sports management group IMG (which represents Tiger Woods and Roger Federer) and Norman Foster & Partners have already done so. "These are not insubstantial companies," he notes. He is targeting politicians next. His overheads are low, and so he reckons 500 members will be enough to cover his costs. He thinks ICorrect, in which he is the sole shareholder, will make a small amount of money this year.
Tang insists he is not seeking vengeance against the media: "It wasn't out of frustration." He says he has never complained to a newspaper, although he knows most of the editors, naturally. The "socialite" label irritates him because he stopped going out when he turned 50. "It's better than being called a paedophile," he reflects. "I suppose for 25 years I did go out."
When pressed, Tang says he believes journalistic standards have fallen, although he could simply be afflicted by a form of selective myopia that seems restricted to the wealthy and powerful, a condition that grows worse when a sufferer's friends and associates are written about regularly. In any case, does he really trust the rich and famous, people he describes as "prima donnas" and "divas", to tell the unvarnished truth on his site?
He says it might not matter, providing there are no fakes – new members must prove they are who they say they are – and no inflammatory or libellous content. "We are not in the business of policing the content, except that obviously I would be entirely stupid if I didn't monitor either defamation or incitement to crime.
"You have to be slightly careful about accepting controversial figures," Tang muses. "If you ask me, would I accept Nick Griffin or Gary Glitter – probably not, because I can do without the hassle." When asked if allowing propaganda to be published on ICorrect unchallenged would undermine the credibility of the site and embarrass him personally, Tang begins to rant about the long list of despots who have been the guests of the Queen.
"They all rolled up in open carriages up the Mall, stayed in Buckingham Palace, and they were entertained regally by ... Her Majesty. And afterwards they all go mad, or we discover they were [mad all along]. But that's part of life. What can we do?"
Bar any dictator from using the site, perhaps? "Yes, but let's say Gaddafi wanted to join ICorrect tomorrow and it all turns out to be bullshit. It could actually form a very valuable piece of information for historians and psychologists," Tang argues unconvincingly.
He believes celebrities might even use the site to indulge in acts of contrition. "It could also become [a forum for] apologia. If I were Naomi Campell I might well have said I should not have used the word 'inconvenient' in the Charles Taylor [trial in the Hague]." Americans love apologia, he says, his eyes lighting up at the prospect. "You need Tiger Woods to say 'I'm very sorry, I shouldn't have done this'." That may be fanciful, but Tang is convinced ICorrect will give many well-known figures the opportunity to have "the final word".
