Gastcollege Digitale Democratie in de Praktijk 9 12-16

Crowdsourcing for Democracy
Dr. Matthijs Pontier
Kandidaat #3 Piratenpartij TK2017

 Trust civilians vs Distrust ‘power'
 Enthusiastic about tech, but alert on risks
 Use tech to empower; not to repress
 Free sharing of information, art and culture
 Evidence-based policy with long-term vision
 Stimulate self-determination, but keep rights
Basic principles Pirate Party
Matthijs Pontier, VU Amsterdam, 8-12-2016 Crowdsourcing for Democracy

Self-censorship
• People do not dare to speak out against
the ‘higher ups’
• ‘Crazy ideas’ are necessary for progress
"If there is no right to
privacy, there can be no true
freedom of expression and
opinion, and therefore, there
can be no effective democracy."

• Inequal power distribution is a major problem
• Too much top-down
• People are losing faith in democracy
• Less voting, especially young people
• Media and big money have big influence on ‘democratic’ process
Problem: Democratic deficit

• The right to privacy ends
where you start representing others
• Open agenda’s
• Open money streams
• Open decision-making
Solutions: Transparency

• Open online classes
• Open datasets (anonimized)
• Open access publishing
• Open source software
• Open money streams
Transparency to society

• Easy to participate
• Increase democratic participation
• Help people to have real influence
• Allow large groups to organize with ideas
• Voting on ideas instead of on parties or persons
• Power of Ideas replace the idea of power
Why e-democracy

Amsterdam West

• Startnotitie:
• “Het vertrouwen in politieke instituties en partijen kalft af
• Bij GR2014 verkiezingen Amsterdam was de opkomst maar
50,1%
• Kwaliteit en legitimiteit beleid worden continu bevraagd”
• Referenda zijn beter dan niets, maar slechts een noodrem.
Wij willen ook kunnen sturen!
Problemen in huidige democratie

Wat: Door wie: Wat is het?
Agendering –Gemeenteraad
–College van B & W
–(Fracties in het) algemeen bestuur
–Dagelijks bestuur
Het agenderen van onderwerpen voor
bestuurscommissievergaderingen.
Oordeelsvorming -Bestuurscommissie Het vormen van een oordeel over deze
onderwerpen.
Besluitvorming –Bestuurscommissie Stemmen over beleid met betrekking
tot deze onderwerpen.
Implementatie –DB, gecontroleerd door AB Uitvoering van beleid

• “West wil een voortrekkersrol spelen in het vergroten van de invloed
van bewoners op beleid en zoekt naar nieuwe vormen van
participatie en democratie, zo willen we:
• Interactieve democratie invoeren om burgers uit te dagen met
nieuwe voorstellen te komen
• Buurtbegrotingen waarin bewoners het laatste woord hebben.”
Amsterdam West wil hier o.a. aan doen:

• Over 600.000 users since 2008
• Scales well, easy to translate and adapt
• Used in Iceland, Estonia, Australia, USA, UK,
and elsewhere
Your Priorities

citizens.is

• Citizens add ideas and points for and against
• Best ideas are chosen by the participants
• All ideas and best points for and
against them are visible at a glance
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0lFd1poJfs
How does it work?

• Points for and against in different columns -> makes it hard to argue
• This encourages rational debate and helps facilitate consensus
Don’t argue, debate!

• Prioritization of ideas and points makes junk
disappear down lists
• Users notify admins about offending content
• Users get 3 warnings and are banned on the 4th
• They never yet had to ban a user
Abuse protection

Your Priorities 3D
● 3D universe of ideas that cluster together in content and context

• Jon Gnarr: Comedian who critized corruption
and became mayor of Reykjavik

•Formal collaboration with the city of Reykjavík
connect citizens to their representatives
•Over 70.000 of 120.000 people participated
•15 top ideas processed every month
•476 ideas have been approved
Better Reykjavik

• Online participatory budgeting to improve the city
of Reykjavik
• Each voter has the same budget amount as the total
and chooses which projects she wants to vote for
• Participants learn the realities of budgeting
Participatory budgeting

Participatory budgeting

• Niet slechts eens in de zoveel tijd stemmen
• Representatie is altijd vrijwillig
per moment en per onderwerp
• Altijd mogelijkheid aan te passen wie jou vertegenwoordigt op
welk onderwerp
• Maakt representatie persoonlijk,
brengt vertrouwen terug in de politiek
Representatie in een e-democracy

Representation in an e-democracy

 Result: Experts decide about their expertise
 http://youtu.be/aIce4CvVo7I?t=2m0s
Representation in an e-democracy

• All that we do online is collected as data
• This is used by big corporations to predict our behaviour
and control what we see online to sell us products
• We can use similar methods
to empower people democratically
• AI learns about your interests and needs
• Shows you what you want and need to see
• Risk: Filter bubble -> Find balance
Recommender systems

• Machine translation of Your Priorities websites, allowing people who
speak different languages to communicate
• Enables minorities to participate
AI Translation

• After political scandals in Estonia in 2012, grassroots
organisations lead a law reform project
• Ideas were gathered through Your Priorities that was
installed and modified by Estonians
• Over 50.000 people took part and
submitted over 2000 proposals
• Ideas have become Estonian law
Rahvakogu – Estionan Reforms

Crowdsourcen verkiezingsprogramma TK2017
• Iedereen kon input leveren via Loomio
• Consensus over onderwerp vinden in discussie
• Voorstel doen en hierover stemmen
• Controversiele voorstellen moeten via amendement op congres

Combine online & offline
•Improve traditional democratic processes
•Brainstorm online -> assembly offline -> vote on/offline
•Enhance offline assemblies with direct
online feedback from active audience
Matthijs Pontier, Fabcity campus Amsterdam, 26-5-2016 Crowdsourcing a constitution for the EU

Constitution Iceland
• 1000 randomly selected civilians held assembly;
gave a 700-page advise about principles and values in Constitution
• 25 elected civilians (out of 522) held assemblies
and wrote the Constitution
• Before assemblies, elected civilians asked for feedback,
leading to ~4000 comments
• 2/3 civilians supported Constitution in referendum
• Constitution killed by conservative politicians
• Pirate party protested this, and got popular..

Crowdsourcing EU constitution
 Constitution was voted down in referendum
 Lisbon-treaty largely same; no referendum
 Symbolic for democratic deficit in EU
 EU should be by the people, for the people
 https://www.peoplesconstitution.eu
 Twitter: @CrowdsourceEU
Facebook: Crowdsource Europe

Accept values / ideas / articles / amendments,
when:
• Popular enough
• Not too controversial

• Hoe denken jullie over interactieve democratie?
• Wat zien jullie als belangrijkste voor- en nadelen?
• Hoe zouden jullie e-democracy en G1000-model willen inzetten?
• Anoniem of juist niet?
• @Matthijs85
• Matthijs Pontier
• matthijs@piratenpartij.nl
Discussie

Web Piratenpartij.nl
Twitter @Piratenpartij
@Matthijs85

Meer lezen:
• De toekomst vand de democratie volgens Matthijs Pontier van de
Piratenpartij
• Democratische vernieuwing, het kan dus wel
• Referenda zijn eigenlijk ouderwets
• Ik wil niet alleen een noodrem; Ik wil kunnen sturen!
• How Iceland introduced e-demoracy
• http://www.citizens.is/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIce4CvVo7I

Gastcollege Digitale Democratie in de Praktijk 9 12-16

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Gastcollege Digitale Democratie in de Praktijk 9 12-16