The World's Political
Conversation
Should Be Better

How did it become so pervasive?

Our perspective is that Polarization has recently become such an issue due to a few converging factors. Firstly, the popularization of generic social media platforms beginning in the early 2010s fostered echo chambers, promoted black-and-white thinking, and enabled misleading or false information to be spread rapidly. This is mainly due to their algorithmic prioritization of highly positive or highly negative content, ignoring most “normal content” in the middle. They also face the general online platform issue of context collapse, but it's more severe in short text/image platforms. At the same time, the increasing trend of fragmentation & partisanship in traditional media has amplified our human tendency of confirmation bias. And, highly emotional content (Which on average is more polarizing) has been prioritized by both traditional media & online platforms. In short, a perfect technological, economic and social storm

Is it actually a negative thing?

People will always disagree with others on political issues, sometimes quite sharply. And disagreements are often healthy! But excessive amounts of polarization like we're seeing today lead to hostility, echo chambers, and unproductive dialogue. Even worse, it makes people less willing to compromise or engage in constructive debates with each other. That in turn can create a self-reinforcing negative spiral.

So What Can We Do About It?

Povi was built to bridge the political divide by promoting transparency & good-faith engagement between people of differing political perspectives, which has been backed by research to reduce polarization. Additionally, we’ve committed to balanced algorithms, that is: We promote & recommend content that opposes the current viewpoint in addition to similar content. And we strive to include the often-forgotten middle ground, the “Normal” viewpoints that get left in the emotional dust. The good news is: We believe this is a solvable problem. But it's a huge one, and we're under no illusions that we can fix it alone. It's going to take many smart ideas, innovative people, partnerships, and hard work to start seeing progress. The more Povi grows, the greater positive effect we can have. We're open to working with anyone else who wants to help solve this, if that's you, get in contact with us! In Summation: While the unfocused & unchecked internet & modern media have significantly accelerated polarization, these same tools can also be utilized to counteract it at scale.