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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 12 2021, @03:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the Crowdsourced-Government dept.

Taiwan has found a way to use a carefully designed social network constructively.
As stated in the Tyee,

Taiwan Is Crowdsourcing an Everybody-Wins Democracy

They had to do something. In 2014,

Opponents to the bill felt not just defeated, but invisible. The government had promised to listen to their concerns, but simply hadn't done so, rushing the bill onto the parliament floor. They had the votes; they could get it through. So that evening, protesters scaled the fence, kicked the door open and streamed onto the floor of Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan.

Sound familiar from recent history?

Well, the government found a way to listen.

They set up vTaiwan, a social network where prominence is given to posts that further concord instead of discord. And they're using it to craft proposals for legislation. Anyone can contribute.

The article doesn't state how the social network determines which posts promote consensus. I'd like to know.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @01:33AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @01:33AM (#1099242)

    Taiwan does use something like sock puppets in an effort to combat misinformation without censorship. These accounts are used to post responses that e.g., point out that anything from qanon is batshit insane rather than banning the insane posts. These are used in mainstream social media sites.

    If the US had a system like this, every tweet by Trump would have been responded to with a barrage of tweets pointing out that what Trump said had no basis in truth nor reality.

    Not sure it would work here though. Trump supporters are not known for nuance nor changing their minds when presented with evidence.

  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday January 17 2021, @09:41PM

    by hendrikboom (1125) on Sunday January 17 2021, @09:41PM (#1101697) Homepage Journal

    Not sure it would work here though. Trump supporters are not known for nuance nor changing their minds when presented with evidence.

    No, but it might affect those who are sitting on the fence.

    -- hendrik