Shining a light on divisiveness
The Civil Discourse Project is building a candidate rating system trusted by voters across the political spectrum. Our non-partisan technology platform flags divisive language and rates candidates for political office based on their level of divisive rhetoric.
Technology helped cause the problem…
Cable news and social media are designed to feed outrage. This has led politicians to engage in destructive behavior that is tearing our country apart:
Demonization of people with opposing points of view
Obstruction as a weapon to sabotage the other party
Undermining the institutions that underpin our democracy.
…technology can also help solve it.
Before we can discuss policy, we must first create an environment that encourages productive debate around our common goals.
Just as financial investors use credit ratings from Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s to measure a company's creditworthiness and financial strength, voters and donors can use our candidate ratings to measure the divisiveness of a politician’s rhetoric.
The Civil Discourse Project was created to promote constructive dialogue, not centrism. It combines crowdsourcing with artificial intelligence to flag divisive language and rate candidates for political office based on their level of divisiveness or civility.
We are stringently non-partisan. Our goal is to promote constructive dialogue, not centrism. Ratings are impacted solely by the language used, not ideology or policy positions.
Our core values
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Transparent.
Our rules for flagging divisive content are explicitly stated. Users can see how each score is derived and dispute assessments they disagree with.
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Non-partisan.
A candidate’s rating is based solely on the language they use, and is not affected by their policy positions and ideology.
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Accessible.
We are committed to making our data easily accessible & empowering people from all backgrounds to participate in the ratings process.
