BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Social media has facilitated the spread of misinformation, eroding trust in democratic institutions and making it difficult for citizens to make informed decisions.
This is the view of William Steele, CEO of Represent, a new civic media platform that has just launched in Brownsville. He believes his company can counter the misinformation by connecting citizens more effectively to those who represent them in elected office.
Steele said he and the two cofounders of Represent have designed a social media platform to “effectively connect citizens with political candidates and elected officials - at every scale of government.”
Along with Steele, the other co-founders of Represent are Jorge Valenzuela, the CTO, and and Jack Sawyer, the COO.
“Represent is a civic media platform that empowers citizens to unite their voices to ensure their collective needs are understood and addressed by their representatives with accountability in our democracy,” Steele told the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service.
The co-founders of Represent argue that unequal representation, dark money, and partisan polarization has “disaligned” the incentives of the representatives with the best interests of their citizens.
Steele said: “We are apathetic towards government and social media has facilitated the spread of misinformation, further eroding trust in democratic institutions and making it difficult for citizens to make informed decisions.”
The solution, Steele said, is Represent. He said the new platform empowers citizens by uniting the voices of citizens to ensure that collective needs are understood and addressed by elected officials.
“(It) allows representatives to respond to all of their concerned citizens at once, and immutably records the interactions to promote accountability in our government.”
Steele added: that unlike other civic engagement platforms, Represent incentivizes both citizen and politicians to actively participate, and leverage the most sustainable sources of human gratification: connection and collaboration.
“All users are anonymously verified as a unique human, eliminating any risk of fraud or bots that have plagued other social applications,” Steele said. “Citizens are able to democratically moderate themselves in the political groups they choose to join by setting their rules and enforcing them.”
Represent was incubated within the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization in Brownsville. The Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation recently hosted a launch party there for the startup.
“Represent is a revolutionary social media platform committed to enhancing democracy by enabling more interactive, responsive, and transparent political engagement. This unique platform builds a bridge between citizens, political candidates, and officials at every level of government,” said Nathan Burkhart, director of business development at BCIC.
Burkhart predicted Represent would “redefine political communication and engagement.”
Here is an audio interview with Represent co-founder William Steele:
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