This morning while cruising Mashable Business I came across an article for a new site, TwoSides. The premise of the site is to give people a place to debate, vote and educate themselves on current issues that will affect the upcoming election in 2012 and beyond.
As I read the article, I wondered, will people be able to be civil enough to do this? We find ourselves in the midst of a fiery and polarizing time politically and socially. Here users, whether a Tea Partier or an individual from #OccupyWallStreet and everyone in between, are given a platform to look at issues from another point of view, build pages about causes most important to them and vote on issues and then compare their opinions to others on the site. Founder Jono Lee says the start up wants to “eliminate a narrow-minded way of consuming news.”
Can a social media political platform change the way people think? Can this really help open people’s minds to new points of view or does it only perpetuate ideas people already have, solidifying them in graphs and charts and recording them in percentages, pitting some groups against others? If this took off, would politicians be looking at these numbers, perhaps even participating? What affect could a site like this have on politics and voter education in America?
Anything that will help us pursue truth with greater fervor.
Can this really help open people’s minds to new points of view? I’m not entirely sure either, but I think we can all agree it’s definitely worth a try.
Jono, TwoSides founder