Sean Parker this week unveiled the new Brigade app, a social network dedicated to politics where users can express their opinions on important issues, see how they compare with their friends and, hopefully, create collective action.
Democracy starts when you take a stand, is the tagline for the newly announced app, which just entered private beta. Described as simple and snackable, the app presents the user with an issue, such as trade with Asia and asks them to take a stance with a simple agree or disagree button, and the user can then explain their reasoning.
If the user is unsure, they can flip through reasons that argue for both sides. Afterwards, the user can see a polling chart that shows the percentage of users that agree or disagree with their stance. If the user is able to convince one of their friends to change sides based on their reasoning, they will earn a higher Impact Score, the basic currency of the site. Users can also compare their stances with their friends and determine which of their friends they are most politically aligned with.
Parker, executive chairman of Brigade and former president of Facebook, said he has been thinking about how technology can shape political life ever since his time alongside Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook. The challenge is that social norms dictates that you obey a certain set of social rules on the kinds of things you share or don t, Parker told Politico. When it comes to your civic identity or your political identity or your charitable identity, frankly you don t want to express that side of yourself on Facebook. It s not the right medium to do it.
This is where Brigade comes in, he says, a social network dedicated to discussing political issues where users can find like-minded people and act collectively about issues they care about.
When we were thinking about how to engage people in politics, most people say they don t care about politics, Parker told TechCrunch. They hate politicians. Congressional approval ratings are at a historic low. Trust in government is at a historic low. From one point of view, the system is about as broken as it can be, Parker said. But when we interview users, we find that everyone has an issue they care about or something that they want to change in the world.
So far, this initiative to rouse political participation seems to be working. Of the 13,000 current users, each on average has taken over 90 stances. Users can sign up for the private beta online, and the company stresses that they will be adding features, such as the ability to start groups.
Photo: Sean Parker, file photo by ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images
