The US state department has unveiled an exciting new initiative: using the internet to solict opinions from people through a website. Extraordinary.
The site, called Opinion Space, is a joint project between the state department and the University of California's Berkeley centre for new media. According to the site, the state department "is interested in your perspectives and input on a series of important foreign policy questions. Opinion Space is a new discussion forum designed to engage participants from around the world."
As is well established, the web is a place for thoughtful study and rigorous analysis, and this new website will surely be no exception, especially as US foreign policy is so uncontroversial. Yet tempers can flare, even on the internet. How will Opinion Space deal with this? "Opinion Space is a new tool that uses data visualisation and statistical analysis to give all participants an equal opportunity to have their opinions heard and to vote on the ideas of others."
It's very simple. When you sign on to Opinion Space, you answer questions on matters of international importance (nuclear disarmament, for example) that allow your views to be mapped onto a matrix, closer to those you are likely to agree with while "those who are far apart have agreed to disagree", according to the site. To explain this, here is what the site's FAQ says:
"Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) from advanced mathematics, multiple opinions (more than two) can be projected onto two dimensions and still approximate original distance relationships."
That's clear. But with many thousands and even millions of opinions in the world, floating around this matrix, how can one find oneself? "You are the yellow point encompassed by a yellow halo that you will see after you register," says the FAQ. Most commenters on websites already think they have a halo, and Opinion Space finally acknowledges this. (Don't get this mixed up with Halo, however – Opinion Space is not yet Xbox compatible.)
"It's hard to know whether Opinion Space will redefine diplomacy or turn out to be another of Politics 2.0's bright, shiny things," noted Megan Garber of Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab. It's early days, to be sure. So let's dive into the opinion pool and see what's there.
Clicking on a random halo in the middle, under the title "Ideas for Secretary of State Clinton" is a gnomic comment – "nothing" – from anichkasam in Bulgaria. Oh dear. Moving out into the far-right, things get more promising:
"Dear Madam Secretary,
Please end ALL international development assistance NOW! ... I am tired of paying for and supporting the livlihoods of corrupt tyrants and their underachieving, lazy and dependent populations, both here in the US and abroad."
OK, so that's a view, from Paulie in Virginia, who also strongly opposes empowering women or proactive diplomacy, according to his or her answers.
But the real test of an opinion website is how it copes with the tricky issues such as the Middle East:
"Your harangue of Prime Minister Netanyahu on settlements within Jerusalem was reprehensible ... you now appear to be Obama's lap dog."
That's mild, compared to most of the web, as Cif readers can testify. But there are far more innovative ideas out there:
"For every rocket attack suffered by the Israelies, $100,000 of the money slated for Palestine would instead go to Israel. For every extrajudicial killing, $1,000,000 will be taken from Israel and go to Palestine. In short, we should use cash incentives to elicit more favorable behavior."
It's a crazy idea but it might just not work.
Of course, it would be churlish to complain about anything that seeks to create dialogue, even if it's not like there aren't plenty of alternatives on the web. America's reputation for listening to the rest of the world hasn't been burnished in recent years. The savvy TechPresident website is more enthusiastic: "It's a redefinition – or, really, one more tweak in a continuing redefinition – of the mission and means of US development and diplomacy, and it's been happening under the purview of secretary of state Hillary Clinton at a pretty quick pace."
And it might be more useful if it was available in languages other than English.