Escape your bubble: Vox Pop Academy promotes mature online debate

Civinc's Leon Horbach, one of the people behind the initiative, explains that the Vox Pop Academy story actually began three and a half years ago. "During the 2017 elections, it was apparent that political polarisation was increasing. People with different backgrounds and opinions were at loggerheads. Especially online, on Twitter and Facebook, debates sometimes got out of hand and extreme views got a lot of exposure. At the same time, we witnessed the rise of filter bubbles: on the internet, it's increasingly common for people to get their information from sources that reinforce their own opinions. Both of those trends are down to the behaviour of the algorithms used by commercial platforms, which are designed primarily to promote the sale of advertising. And both trends undermine healthy public debate."

Against that backdrop, Horbach and three friends set up Waaromkiesjij.nl ('why do you vote'): a website where visitors could discuss issues with people with contrasting political views. "We wanted to create an online environment where you could talk to people who look at things differently. Anonymously, so that everyone could speak freely, and without any perverse incentives for extremist views, such as likes, shares and follows. The idea was to encourage understanding and contact." Waaromkiesjij.nl was a big success in the Netherlands, hosting more than 35,000 online debates involving supporters of twenty-five political parties. The initiative also drew interest from abroad, leading to similar projects in five other countries.

Young people: citizens of the future

"After the elections, we wanted to pursue our mission further, using technology to bring people together," continues Horbach. "Not just during the elections, but on a structural basis." Horbach and his colleagues saw the education sector as the best place to do that. "That's where the citizens of the future are being shaped, and where we can achieve the most." The Civinc team therefore developed Vox Pop Academy, an online educational environment for online debates between young people with contrasting opinions.

Before each Vox Pop Academy session, participating students and their teacher choose a theme and are presented with a series of discussion points. During the session, each student starts by giving their own views on each point. Next, they are put in contact with someone with a different take on the subject. The two then interact anonymously in a one-to-one chat. As they exchange views, a bot gives advice, such as, "Attack the message, not the messenger," or "Let the other person finish." Each session covers several discussion points, each of which is debated with a new partner.

"The ability to engage with people who hold different views is vital for a healthy democracy," says Horbach. "Our tool helps young people to acquire that skill." Vox Pop Academy can be used either within a single class or school, or for debates involving students from two or more schools.

Three-school pilot

With the aim of seeing how the idea worked in practice, a pilot was organised across three vocational colleges. "In the vocational upper secondary sector, civic education is part the curriculum, and Vox Pop Academy is ideal for use in that context," Horbach points out. The pilot took place under unusual circumstances, with all Dutch schools closed and their pupils learning from home during the coronavirus crisis. "As an online resource, Vox Pop Academy is easy to use from home," adds Horbach. "Nevertheless, the pilot emphasised the importance of having a teacher introduce the theme and tell students what they need to do. Making contact, explaining things and providing technical support are all harder with a remote set-up."

For the pilot, Vox Pop Academy users were asked to debate coronavirus measures, with discussion points such as, "Everyone always has the right to demonstrate, even during the coronavirus crisis." "Neither we nor the teachers can see what students are saying to each other," says Horbach. "The Academy is set up that way for privacy reasons, and to remove any pressure to say what's socially expected." Teachers can see how their students have voted on the discussion points, because that's useful for further lesson planning.

Upscaling for nationwide use

While getting a positive response from participating teachers, the pilot brought a couple of technical issues to light. "We had assumed that all the students would log in at the same time," says Horbach. "But that wasn't what happened in practice. So we've modified the software so that users can still connect after the session has started." Another issue was that a session was sometimes lost if a student refreshed their browser tab. That problem has since been corrected as well.

Civinc now wants to scale up the pilot to the national level. "Vox Pop Academy is available to all upper secondary schools, both vocational and academic, on a free trial basis," Horbach says. "We want more schools onboard so that we can expand our network and continue learning from the field." Feedback from the national test phase will then be used to refine the technology further. Ultimately, Vox Pop Academy will become a paid product that schools and community organisations can use to support their civic education activities.

Provision for adults

One thing Horbach definitely wants to do is enable teachers to create their own Vox Pop Academy sessions. With the present design, discussion points have to be entered on the system by Civinc. Horbach also dreams of providing the bot with artificial intelligence, so that it can give advice adapted to the particular situation. "A profanity detector would be good as well," he continues. "It would be a laugh to spend a day programming in every swearword I can think of!"

Adults will soon be able to get their democratic skills up to scratch as well. Ahead of the 2021 elections, Waaromkiesjij.nl will provide a fresh opportunity to engage in anonymous debate with people who hold contrasting political opinions in February 2021. This time, Civinc will be collaborating with Stemwijzer, which roughly eight million Dutch people can use to get political information. "The link-up will substantially increase our impact," says Horbach. "And it's really important to have as much impact as possible, because our mission has only become more urgent since we began."