Can technology fix politics?

The American political landscape has become a bit of a circus, which can leave spectators unsure if it’s meant to be funny or sad, serious or satirical. The major performers are the politicians running for office, elected officials in office, news media outlets through whose lens we filter our gaze, and us, the citizens, for whom this performance is put on. Unfortunately, the audience has lost interest and the performers have yet to take notice.

The whole purpose of this performance is to gain citizens’ support in the form of votes, however, people have stopped voting. In 2014, voter turnout was at 36.3%, the lowest it’s been since 1942. The problem is that young people don’t feel like this show is even aimed at them. In fact, politicians have noticed that millennials are not strong voters, and instead of courting us, they seem to have given up and moved on. In turn, it seems that young people have lost trust in the political process and have decided that voting is not the solution. In the 2012 presidential election, only 45% of 18–29 year olds voted, followed by the lowest turnout ever recorded in a federal election at 19.9% in 2014. According to a poll conducted by Harvard Institute Of Politics in spring 2015, 36% of 18–29 year old’s polled, trust the President to “do the right thing all or most of the time”, while only 18% trust the same of Congress. Even fewer young Americans (12%) trust the media. It’s clear there needs to be a shift in reaching this group of potential voters.

We already have a new form of media that we use to interact with the political process: social media. While at first glance it may appear that social media is engaging the younger generation politically, our voter turnout is still not improving. Obtaining and sharing political information via Facebook and Twitter is just as problematic as acquiring news from traditional media sources like television and newspapers, where much news still originates.

While social media can be a valuable aggregator, we suffer from information overload; there are too many news sources, many of which are biased and unreliable. Social media has not solved this problem, but exacerbated it. There are two main problems with political information and social media:

1. People seek information that reaffirms their own political beliefs.
Unfortunately, we are not reading both sides and making educated decisions based on understanding the issues and weighing both opposing and agreeing opinions. Instead, we tend to find sources that confirm our own beliefs, then read, and share those sources. This creates an even more polarizing political environment.

2. There’s a lot of misinformation floating around the internet.
We have all seen memes and headlines fill our Facebook feed that seem a bit too outrageous to be true. Well, many of them aren’t. Many people read these articles as fact and share them without checking their accuracy. We often even like or share articles based solely on the headline without ever reading the body of the article. This creates a cycle of misleading information.

Social media is instantaneous. The goal is to grab people’s attention and get instant feedback, leaving no room for fact-checking or understanding the opposing side of the argument. The resulting information that is propagated worsens people’s mistrust of the ‘other side’ and drives us further away from a government that we feel represents all of us. We need to figure out a way to get people engaged and informed without immediately putting them on opposing sides.

An important aspect of being a smart, informed voter navigating endless newsfeeds, is not to get caught in social media’s spiderweb. Here’s how you can verify and then re-verify your sources:

• Watch out for misleading headlines. Catchy or alarming headlines are a good way to get people to react. They’ve baited you; don’t just click and share. Be sure to read all of an article before reacting.
• If it seems too outrageous to be true, it probably is. Google it (and Google it wisely)! We have a world of information at our fingertips, but that doesn’t mean all of it is factual. Make sure you’re getting your information from a trusted source.
• Double check information. Reading something from one source and preaching it as truth afterwards is a good way to get caught in a trap. If you feel strongly about something, you should dig a little deeper. Make sure that multiple reliable sources have the same information before you start sharing with the world.
• Find primary sources. Many articles quote speeches and interviews, but may either take the quote out of context or inaccurately paraphrase. Trace a link back to its source. The great thing about the internet is that you can find almost any speech or interview and play it back. That’s the best way to be sure you’re hearing it right from the candidate’s mouth.

This is not a lost cause. Technology doesn’t have to work as a polarizing force; it can unite us. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University recently surveyed people who identified as liberal or conservative and found that people who viewed political information that included opposing concessions had an increased openness and understanding of the other side, as well as a deeper interest in the issue itself. Political information that includes both sides of the argument can shrink the gap between opposing sides. Technology can help by building platforms to facilitate a non-aggressive sharing of political beliefs or new ways to get political information that cut out the pandering to extreme politics.

This is why we decided to build ivotify, a new political information app that depolarizes and simplifies politics by offering easily digestible summaries of the issues and the candidates’ positions on the issues. Our issue summaries are made up of the current law being debated and a spectrum of opinions on the issue, without editorializing or labeling Republican or Democrat. We’re not pandering to deep-seated biases or extreme beliefs. You’re not getting our opinions; you’re just getting the facts. Users get a full understanding of the issue and what both sides believe so that they can make informed decisions without fostering animosity for the ‘other side’. You can test out our alpha version at ivotify.com. If you want to help fix politics then please support our Kickstarter campaign, launching on January 5, 2016.

Dana Kirchoff, product owner of ivotify
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