Silicon Roundabout

Founder of Forgotten Social Network Platform Launching Another One

Chuck Ansbacher | Wednesday 9 March, 2011 09:30

Remember Bebo? Yes, neither does anybody. It was a thing on the internet that happened back when AOL wasn’t a subsidiary of the Huffington Post and still had $850 million to throw at something that might become “the next Facebook,” before it was blindingly apparent to everyone on the internet that there would never, thank God, be another “the next Facebook.”

But don’t tell that to Bebo’s astonishingly rich, astonishingly still convinced there’s room on the internet for yet another social networking platform founder, Michael Birch. In the coming days, Birch will be launching Jolitics, a social networking platform similar to Facebook and Bebo, but as it’s cleverly misspelled name suggests, dedicated solely to the discussion of politics.

Already available in Ireland, Jolitics is launching in the UK on March 15th.

In theory, the platform sounds like it could prove useful, providing an organized forum for the sane discussion of a topic that is usually notorious for being anything but. According to Birch, “Politics online simply has not been done well yet. There are lots of political discussion forums, but they never lead to any full conclusions or consensuses. It’s just a lot of people spouting their opinions with no constructive debate. Jolitics is about empowering those who are following an issue really well to help form opinion and fuel debate.”

In many respects, Birch is correct. In its current form, political discourse on the internet is best (and often) described as an echo chamber — a place where people go to have their opinions reinforced and unchallenged. The commenting systems at most prominent political blogs have, by necessity, become gated communities. The ones that haven’t put up walls to protect against trolls are often nothing more than ignorant shouting matches, and are startling examples of everything that’s wrong with the internet. Users hide behind the sweet veil of online anonymity, and let the vile spew.

Even the quality of political back-and-forths that occur on less anonymous platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is depressing. So you’d be foolish to not at least hope that Jolitics took off, flourished, and turned out to be a virtual Speaker’s Corner of factual, polite, genuine idea-sharing.

However, this being the internet, we have our doubts.

The greatest hurdle Jolitics will face is one that all debate, political or otherwise, suffers from — dubious facts. Even moderated debates often devolve into mudslinging competitions. Truth in politics is always intangible, and usually when people have a belief — regardless of how insane it is — they believe it with all their might. How do you challenge those beliefs? Is there a way?? Is the way even going to be on the internet??? However optimistic we would like to pretend to be, it seems unlikely.

Nevertheless, the guy did invent Bebo. He probably knows what he’s doing.

(via telegraph)

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