TECH THURSDAY · OCTOBER 8, 2026
Upgrading Democracy
Lessons from Taiwan's civic hackers
Two clusters of dots, one dark and one grey-teal, with yellow bridge dots between them
JOE HOLMES · HARRISONBURG INNOVATION HUB
Anime still: an old admiral in a black uniform raises a paper cup beside a bandaged younger officer, against a starry window. Subtitle: A toast to democracy.
A very short history of post-war Taiwan
1945–1996 · TAIWAN
How Taiwan became a democracy
1949
The losing side of China's civil war moves its government to Taiwan.
1949–87
Martial law. The crackdown on dissent is called the White Terror.
1971–79
The world recognizes Beijing: the UN seat, Nixon meets Mao, the US.
1987
Pressed from abroad and at home, the regime lifts martial law.
1991–96
Open elections begin as the World Wide Web goes public.
Map of the Taiwan Strait: the coast of mainland China and Taiwan
MAINLAND
Taiwan
TAIWAN
RECOGNIZED AS CHINA
REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Sources: Wikipedia, Martial law in Taiwan · Retrospect Journal, 2024
1945–1996 · TAIWAN
How Taiwan became a democracy
1949
The losing side of China's civil war moves its government to Taiwan.
1949–87
Martial law. The crackdown on dissent is called the White Terror.
1971–79
The world recognizes Beijing: the UN seat, Nixon meets Mao, the US.
1987
Pressed from abroad and at home, the regime lifts martial law.
1991–96
Open elections begin as the World Wide Web goes public.
Map of the Taiwan Strait: the coast of mainland China and Taiwan
MAINLAND
Taiwan, dark during martial law
TAIWAN
RECOGNIZED AS CHINA
MARTIAL LAW
Sources: Wikipedia, Martial law in Taiwan · Retrospect Journal, 2024
1945–1996 · TAIWAN
How Taiwan became a democracy
1949
The losing side of China's civil war moves its government to Taiwan.
1949–87
Martial law. The crackdown on dissent is called the White Terror.
1971–79
The world recognizes Beijing: the UN seat, Nixon meets Mao, the US.
1987
Pressed from abroad and at home, the regime lifts martial law.
1991–96
Open elections begin as the World Wide Web goes public.
Map of the Taiwan Strait: the coast of mainland China and Taiwan
MAINLAND
Taiwan, dark during martial law
TAIWAN
RECOGNIZED AS CHINA
MARTIAL LAW
Sources: Wikipedia, Martial law in Taiwan · Retrospect Journal, 2024
1945–1996 · TAIWAN
How Taiwan became a democracy
1949
The losing side of China's civil war moves its government to Taiwan.
1949–87
Martial law. The crackdown on dissent is called the White Terror.
1971–79
The world recognizes Beijing: the UN seat, Nixon meets Mao, the US.
1987
Pressed from abroad and at home, the regime lifts martial law.
1991–96
Open elections begin as the World Wide Web goes public.
Map of the Taiwan Strait: the coast of mainland China and Taiwan
MAINLAND
Taiwan, lighter after martial law ends
TAIWAN
RECOGNIZED AS CHINA
MARTIAL LAW LIFTED
Sources: Wikipedia, Martial law in Taiwan · Retrospect Journal, 2024
1945–1996 · TAIWAN
How Taiwan became a democracy
1949
The losing side of China's civil war moves its government to Taiwan.
1949–87
Martial law. The crackdown on dissent is called the White Terror.
1971–79
The world recognizes Beijing: the UN seat, Nixon meets Mao, the US.
1987
Pressed from abroad and at home, the regime lifts martial law.
1991–96
Open elections begin as the World Wide Web goes public.
Map of the Taiwan Strait: the coast of mainland China and Taiwan
MAINLAND
Taiwan, lit up in yellow
TAIWAN
RECOGNIZED AS CHINA
ELECTIONS + THE WEB
Sources: Wikipedia, Martial law in Taiwan · Wikipedia, 1991 National Assembly election
"Internet and democracy — not two things, but one and the same thing in Taiwan."
Portrait of Audrey Tang
AUDREY TANG
Photo: Camille McOuat, via Wikimedia Commons
g0v forks the government
2012 · g0v
From an empty ad to an open budget
October 2012
The government airs a 40-second ad for its "Economic Power-Up Plan." g0v summed it up:
"We have a very complex plan. It is too complicated to explain. Never mind the details — just follow instructions and go along with it!"
October 19, 2012
Annoyed by the ad, four hackers at Yahoo's Open Hack Day scrap their project and build Budget Maps: the national budget, sized by spending, open to a vote.
December 1, 2012
Their NT$50,000 prize pays for the first g0v hackathon: 80 people at Academia Sinica.
A still from the 2012 ad: a woman in sunglasses holding a coffee cup, with the subtitle 經濟發展需要很完整的規劃
The ad. Subtitle: "Economic development needs very thorough planning."
Sources: First Year of g0v.tw (g0v, 2013) · Ad backup, YouTube
2012 · g0v
From an empty ad to an open budget
October 2012
The government airs a 40-second ad for its "Economic Power-Up Plan." g0v summed it up:
"We have a very complex plan. It is too complicated to explain. Never mind the details — just follow instructions and go along with it!"
October 19, 2012
Annoyed by the ad, four hackers at Yahoo's Open Hack Day scrap their project and build Budget Maps: the national budget, sized by spending, open to a vote.
December 1, 2012
Their NT$50,000 prize pays for the first g0v hackathon: 80 people at Academia Sinica.
Budget Maps: the national budget drawn as colored circles sized by spending, with buttons to vote on each item
Budget Maps (budget.g0v.tw), today. Vote: add · don't understand · reduce · delete.
Sources: First Year of g0v.tw (g0v, 2013) · Wikipedia, g0v movement
2012 · g0v
From an empty ad to an open budget
October 2012
The government airs a 40-second ad for its "Economic Power-Up Plan." g0v summed it up:
"We have a very complex plan. It is too complicated to explain. Never mind the details — just follow instructions and go along with it!"
October 19, 2012
Annoyed by the ad, four hackers at Yahoo's Open Hack Day scrap their project and build Budget Maps: the national budget, sized by spending, open to a vote.
December 1, 2012
Their NT$50,000 prize pays for the first g0v hackathon: 80 people at Academia Sinica.
hackath0n
第零次動員戡亂黑客松
THE 0TH MOBILIZATION HACKATHON
The event's real name. "Mobilization" borrows the martial-law era's official name for itself.
Sources: First Year of g0v.tw (g0v, 2013) · Wikipedia, g0v movement · KKTIX event page
THE FORK
g
o
0
v.tw
THE FORK
g
o
0
v.tw
"DON'T ASK WHY NOBODY DID THIS. ADMIT YOU ARE THE NOBODY FIRST." · g0v MOTTO
A hackathon every two months
BUILT BEFORE SUNFLOWER, 2012–13
Budget Maps — the national budget, open to a vote
MoeDict — a free, open Chinese dictionary
Congress Matters — bills and hearings, easy to follow
News Helper — flags debunked news stories
Job Helper — flags employers who break labor law
open-source
hands-on
public-spirited
Free software
Civic media
Social activism
g0v
The trade deal and Sunflower
2013 · THE DEAL
What the trade deal was
Signed June 21, 2013, in Shanghai
A services trade deal between Taiwan and China.
64 industries opened on Taiwan's side, 80 on China's
Printing, telecom, tourism, finance and more.
The worries
Chinese money in Taiwan's publishers and phone networks. Small businesses squeezed. And a deal made behind closed doors.
A cartoon: two politicians lead a line of blindfolded workers on leashes
服貿黑箱, the "service-trade black box." Protest cartoon by ETBlue.
Sources: Wikipedia, Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement · Illustration: ETBlue, Wikimedia Commons
2013–2014 · SUNFLOWER
24 days that stopped a trade deal
June 2013
The deal is signed in Shanghai after closed-door talks.
March 17, 2014
A KMT legislator declares the committee review finished in about 30 seconds.
March 18
Students occupy the legislature. g0v streams it live on 17 video feeds.
March 30
A rally fills the streets: 500,000 by organizers' count, 116,000 by police.
April 6–10
The Speaker freezes the deal. The students leave with sunflowers. The deal never returns.
A protester's hand-lettered sign reading 黑箱, black box
黑箱, "black box": the protesters' word for how the deal was made. Photo: tomscy2000, CC BY 2.0
Sources: Wikipedia, Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement · Wikimedia Commons
2013–2014 · SUNFLOWER
24 days that stopped a trade deal
June 2013
The deal is signed in Shanghai after closed-door talks.
March 17, 2014
A KMT legislator declares the committee review finished in about 30 seconds.
March 18
Students occupy the legislature. g0v streams it live on 17 video feeds.
March 30
A rally fills the streets: 500,000 by organizers' count, 116,000 by police.
April 6–10
The Speaker freezes the deal. The students leave with sunflowers. The deal never returns.
Students sitting outside the legislature holding signs against the trade deal
Students outside the legislature, March 22. Photo: tomscy2000, CC BY 2.0
Sources: Wikipedia, Sunflower Student Movement · New Bloom · Wikimedia Commons
2013–2014 · SUNFLOWER
24 days that stopped a trade deal
June 2013
The deal is signed in Shanghai after closed-door talks.
March 17, 2014
A KMT legislator declares the committee review finished in about 30 seconds.
March 18
Students occupy the legislature. g0v streams it live on 17 video feeds.
March 30
A rally fills the streets: 500,000 by organizers' count, 116,000 by police.
April 6–10
The Speaker freezes the deal. The students leave with sunflowers. The deal never returns.
Hundreds of students sitting inside the occupied legislative chamber
Inside the occupied chamber, March 19. Photo: MrWiki321, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sources: Wikipedia, Sunflower Student Movement · The Diplomat (2014) · Wikimedia Commons
MARCH 18 – APRIL 10 · INSIDE THE LEGISLATURE
An occupation run in the open
WHAT THEY BUILT
Hackfolder
One public page linking every stream, document and schedule.
Live streams
17 video feeds and 3 text feeds, inside and outside, run by about 100 people.
Live transcripts
About 1,500 volunteers writing up speeches and meetings as they happened.
Translation
An English site built in 24 hours by 10 translators and 4 engineers.
A small government
Teams for supplies, cleaning, charging, legal, media, medical, security and command.
WHY IT MATTERED
They told their own story
Anyone could watch. No need to trust partisan TV or the government's "mob" story.
The opposite of a black box
The deal was made in secret. The protest was filmed, written down and posted.
Everyone could deliberate
Debate spread online and in the streets. The demands took shape in public.
Cameras as protection
It's hard to quietly clear a room that thousands are watching live.
Sources: SAIS Review · The Diplomat (2014) · Plurality (Weyl, Tang et al.) · Wikipedia (中文), 太陽花學運
Occupy Wall Street, October 2011: nurses in red shirts chant and hold signs reading America's Nurses Support #OccupyWallStreet
Tea Party protest in Washington, September 12, 2009: a yellow Don't Tread on Me flag and American flags in front of the Capitol dome
Occupy Wall Street, Oct 2011 · David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0
Tea Party, Washington, Sept 2009 · CantWinThisGame, CC BY-SA 3.0
"It's not just a protest. It's not just a demonstration against something, but rather it is a demonstration with something. It's a demo, in the sense of demoscene.*"
Portrait of Audrey Tang
AUDREY TANG, ON THE SUNFLOWER OCCUPATION
* Demoscene: a computer subculture, born in the 1980s, where programmers make short, real-time audiovisual "demos" just to show what a machine can do. Source: 80,000 Hours podcast.
2013–2014 · SUNFLOWER
24 days that stopped a trade deal
June 2013
The deal is signed in Shanghai after closed-door talks.
March 17, 2014
A KMT legislator declares the committee review finished in about 30 seconds.
March 18
Students occupy the legislature. g0v streams it live on 17 video feeds.
March 30
A rally fills the streets: 500,000 by organizers' count, 116,000 by police.
April 6–10
The Speaker freezes the deal. The students leave with sunflowers. The deal never returns.
A dense crowd of protesters dressed in black filling a Taipei street
The March 30 rally. Photo: MGdesigner, CC BY 2.0
Sources: Wikipedia, Sunflower Student Movement · Wikimedia Commons
2013–2014 · SUNFLOWER
24 days that stopped a trade deal
June 2013
The deal is signed in Shanghai after closed-door talks.
March 17, 2014
A KMT legislator declares the committee review finished in about 30 seconds.
March 18
Students occupy the legislature. g0v streams it live on 17 video feeds.
March 30
A rally fills the streets: 500,000 by organizers' count, 116,000 by police.
April 6–10
The Speaker freezes the deal. The students leave with sunflowers. The deal never returns.
A large seated crowd outside the legislature at dusk, many holding sunflowers
Outside the legislature, April 10, the day the students left. Photo: Artemas Liu, CC BY 2.0
Sources: Wikipedia, Sunflower Student Movement · The Diplomat (2014) · Wikimedia Commons
The invitation
"Could g0v create a platform for rational discussion and deliberation of policy issues that the entire nation could participate in?"
JACLYN TSAI, KMT CABINET MINISTER AT A g0v HACKATHON, DECEMBER 2014
She served in the government the students had just beaten.
Source: CrowdLaw, vTaiwan case study · Photo: Rico Shen, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons (2015 DAF Taipei Jaclyn Tsai.jpg)
2014–2016 · THE INVITATION
The government asks for help
December 2014
Minister Jaclyn Tsai asks g0v for a national platform for deliberation. Audrey Tang becomes her reverse mentor: a young adviser to the minister.
2015
vTaiwan launches within weeks. More civic hackers join the cabinet's youth advisers; officials promise replies within seven days.
2016
The DPP wins power and keeps it all. Tang joins the cabinet at 35, as a minister for digital affairs.
Jaclyn Tsai speaking into a microphone
Jaclyn Tsai, 2015. Photo: Rico Shen, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sources: CrowdLaw · Ministry of Digital Affairs (Tang interview) · Wikimedia Commons
2014–2016 · THE INVITATION
The government asks for help
December 2014
Minister Jaclyn Tsai asks g0v for a national platform for deliberation. Audrey Tang becomes her reverse mentor: a young adviser to the minister.
2015
vTaiwan launches within weeks. More civic hackers join the cabinet's youth advisers; officials promise replies within seven days.
2016
The DPP wins power and keeps it all. Tang joins the cabinet at 35, as a minister for digital affairs.
Jaclyn Tsai at a cabinet meeting table with a name plate
Jaclyn Tsai meets civic open-data groups, January 2015. Photo: Executive Yuan (open license)
Sources: Audrey Tang, 2016 · Liz Barry, Civicist (2016) · Wikimedia Commons
2014–2016 · THE INVITATION
The government asks for help
December 2014
Minister Jaclyn Tsai asks g0v for a national platform for deliberation. Audrey Tang becomes her reverse mentor: a young adviser to the minister.
2015
vTaiwan launches within weeks. More civic hackers join the cabinet's youth advisers; officials promise replies within seven days.
2016
The DPP wins power and keeps it all. Tang joins the cabinet at 35, as a minister for digital affairs.
Portrait of Audrey Tang looking upward
Audrey Tang. Photo: Camille McOuat, via Wikimedia Commons
Sources: Wikipedia (Chinese), 唐鳳 · Ministry of Digital Affairs · Wikimedia Commons
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Why the government said yes
"…efficiently reach all the stakeholders, so that we can quickly draw a consensus."
JACLYN TSAI, ON GOVERNING A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
"A bottom-up platform for 'open information and crowd wisdom'" — so citizens could help with "fixing our own policies."
KUAN CHUNG-MING, HEAD OF THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
"This government machine badly needs an upgrade."
JACLYN TSAI, 2017, AFTER LEAVING OFFICE
Sources: Liz Barry, Civicist (2016) · Audrey Tang, 2016 · SayIt transcript, Tang and Tsai (2017)
"…the government had lost its credibility as a governing body to an occupation who had outperformed it at demonstrating democracy."
LIZ BARRY, CIVIC-TECH ORGANIZER CO-FOUNDER OF PUBLIC LAB · CIVICIST, 2016
Source: Liz Barry, "vTaiwan: Public Participation Methods on the Cyberpunk Frontier of Democracy," Civicist, August 2016
How vTaiwan works
vTaiwan's own process diagram: Issue, qualify issue, stakeholder discovery; questionnaires and outreach; interpret terminology; online deliberation; comment curation; face-to-face dialogue; transcript; formalized consensus; competent agencies respond. Tool logos: Hackpad, SlideShare, Typeform, Discourse, GitBook, Sli.do, Pol.is, YouTube, LiveHouse.in, SayIt
vTaiwan, How it works · info.vtaiwan.tw
2015 → · vTAIWAN
vTaiwan: the public helps write the rules
1
Proposal
forums · shared docs
2
Opinion
Pol.is
3
Reflection
livestreams · transcripts
4
Legislation
the ministry responds
→
→
→
*
* Advisory. Officials could take it or leave it.
Most of it ran on ordinary free tools. One piece was new.
Sources: vTaiwan · Plurality, ch. 2-2 · CrowdLaw
THE NERVE CENTER
Pol.is
Built in Seattle in 2012 by Colin Megill and friends, after watching Occupy and the Arab Spring.
The problem: a crowd can fill a square, but it can't hold a conversation.
Sources: Broad Listening, The Birth of Polis · Wikipedia, Pol.is
POL.IS · HOW IT WORKS
A conversation with no reply button
Write a short statement.
Vote on everyone else's: agree, disagree, pass.
No replies, so nothing to troll.
The real Pol.is voting card from the vTaiwan Uber conversation: a statement, Agree, Disagree and Pass buttons, and a box that says you are not replying
The real thing: a 2015 vTaiwan conversation. More on it soon. Screenshot: Pol.is · CC BY 4.0, The Computational Democracy Project
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · Pol.is, vTaiwan (2015)
POL.IS · STEP 1
Every vote goes into one table
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
Ana
+1
−1
+1
·
−1
+1
Ben
−1
+1
·
−1
+1
+1
Chen
+1
−1
+1
−1
·
+1
Dee
−1
+1
−1
·
+1
0
Eli
·
+1
−1
+1
+1
+1
Rows are people. Columns are statements.
Pol.is never reads the words. Only the votes.
Illustration. A real 2015 vTaiwan conversation: 199 statements, 53,079 votes.
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · Computational Democracy Project
POL.IS · STEP 2
Turn the table into a map
PCA squashes the table into a 2-D map.
Statements voted on alike sit together. So do people.
Pol.is's real map of the Uber conversation: numbered statements scattered across concentric circles, with groups A and B marked near the center
A real map, vTaiwan, 2015. Each number is a statement.
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · Pol.is report, vTaiwan 2015 (CC BY 4.0)
POL.IS · STEP 3
Find the opinion groups
k-means tries 2 to 5 groups and keeps the cleanest split.
That 2015 conversation split in two: 365 and 968 people.
The real Pol.is opinion map from the Uber conversation: two grey shaded regions labeled A with 365 people and B with 968
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · Pol.is, vTaiwan 2015 (CC BY 4.0)
POL.IS · STEP 4
Find the bridges
Bridge score = share of Group A who agree × share of Group B who agree
● agrees   ○ doesn't
Statement 1
Popular with the big group. Wins a majority vote: 20 of 28.
GROUP A
1 of 8
GROUP B
19 of 20
0.12 × 0.95 = 0.11
Low: not a bridge
Statement 2
Liked on both sides. Also wins: 21 of 28.
GROUP A
6 of 8
GROUP B
15 of 20
0.75 × 0.75 = 0.56
High: a bridge
Both win a majority. Only one is a bridge. If any group says no, the score sinks.
ONE ISSUE, START TO FINISH · UBER, 2015–16
Uber's trip through vTaiwan
1
Proposal
forums · shared docs
2
Opinion
Pol.is
3
Reflection
livestreams · transcripts
4
Legislation
the ministry responds
→
→
→
*
* Advisory. Officials could take it or leave it.
Uber vs. taxis: a fight with no way forward.
Facilitators publish a plain explainer of what's at stake.
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · MIT Technology Review (2018) · CrowdLaw · Ho (2023)
ONE ISSUE, START TO FINISH · UBER, 2015–16
Uber's trip through vTaiwan
1
Proposal
forums · shared docs
2
Opinion
Pol.is
3
Reflection
livestreams · transcripts
4
Legislation
the ministry responds
→
→
→
*
* Advisory. Officials could take it or leave it.
About 2,000 people weigh in on Pol.is.
Two camps. Yet nearly everyone agrees on insurance, fair rules and better taxis.
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · MIT Technology Review (2018) · CrowdLaw · Ho (2023)
ONE ISSUE, START TO FINISH · UBER, 2015–16
Uber's trip through vTaiwan
1
Proposal
forums · shared docs
2
Opinion
Pol.is
3
Reflection
livestreams · transcripts
4
Legislation
the ministry responds
→
→
→
*
* Advisory. Officials could take it or leave it.
The real Pol.is report table of majority statements from the Uber conversation, with green and red agreement bars for everyone, group A and group B
#7 Drivers carrying passengers should all have accident insurance. A 90% · B 87% · BRIDGE
#40 Drivers should be vetted; passenger safety comes first. A 92% · B 91% · BRIDGE
#30 UberX is illegal now and should stop operating. A 58% · B 6% · NOT A BRIDGE
Real report. Translations ours. CC BY 4.0, The Computational Democracy Project
Source: Pol.is report, vTaiwan UberX conversation (2015)
ONE ISSUE, START TO FINISH · UBER, 2015–16
Uber's trip through vTaiwan
1
Proposal
forums · shared docs
2
Opinion
Pol.is
3
Reflection
livestreams · transcripts
4
Legislation
the ministry responds
→
→
→
*
* Advisory. Officials could take it or leave it.
Uber, taxi groups and officials meet, livestreamed.
The agenda is the common ground, not the fight.
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · MIT Technology Review (2018) · CrowdLaw · Ho (2023)
ONE ISSUE, START TO FINISH · UBER, 2015–16
Uber's trip through vTaiwan
1
Proposal
forums · shared docs
2
Opinion
Pol.is
3
Reflection
livestreams · transcripts
4
Legislation
the ministry responds
→
→
→
*
* Advisory. Officials could take it or leave it.
The ministry adopts seven recommendations.
Uber is legalized, with conditions.
Sources: Small et al., Recerca (2021) · MIT Technology Review (2018) · CrowdLaw · Ho (2023)
AFTER vTAIWAN · JOIN
Join: the simple version
1
Anyone posts a proposal
2
It gathers 5,000 supporters
3
Ministries must answer, in public
13,853 proposals. 289 crossed the line.
No consensus map. Just a guaranteed answer.
Sources: Bertelsmann Stiftung · Ho (2023) · Slate (2020)
The toolkit
Assemblies
THE PROBLEM · 2023
Deepfake scam ads, everywhere
Fake celebrity investors pushed stock-tip groups on Facebook and YouTube.
Police asked platforms to pull about 50,000 scam ads in six months. Over 90% were on Facebook.
Taiwan reported NT$8.8 billion lost to fraud in 2023.
The bind: stop the scams without the government deciding what's true.
A Facebook sponsored post in Chinese, with a video still of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, inviting people to join a free stock-tip group
Not Jensen Huang. A 2023 scam ad pitching a "free" stock group.
Sources: National Police Agency via Taipei Times · Liberty Times (screenshot) · Ministry of Digital Affairs
ALIGNMENT ASSEMBLY · MARCH 23, 2024
A random few stand in for everyone
200,000
random texts
1,760
said yes
447
chosen to mirror Taiwan
44
tables of ~10
Forty-four small tables, each ringed by ten dots: 32 tables in teal for the general public, 12 in amber for people who work in digital industries
● 32 tables: the general public
● 12 tables: people who work in tech
Online, with an AI moderator keeping turns fair.
The question: how should Taiwan use AI against scams and deepfakes?
Sources: Ministry of Digital Affairs · Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab
ALIGNMENT ASSEMBLY · WHAT COMES OUT
From a conversation to a law
Survey before
What people think cold
→
The tables
Talk, question 8 experts
→
Survey after
The output: considered views
→
The ministry
Carries it into a draft bill
↓
The legislature
Free to ignore it
↓
Law, July 2024
Platforms must stop scam ads and label deepfakes
AFTER THE TALK
85%
platforms bear primary responsibility
89%
want tools to detect AI-made content
90%
want AI to draw on diverse sources
Sources: Ministry of Digital Affairs · Focus Taiwan (2024) · Lexology
AUDREY TANG · SINCE MAY 2024
Tang now
Left the ministry when the new government took office
Taiwan's Cyber Ambassador, at large, since late 2024
Plurality, the book, with Glen Weyl (2024)
Oxford: “Civic AI” and the 6-Pack of Care
Right Livelihood Award, 2025
Audrey Tang looking upward, in front of a pale background
Same project, bigger stage: tools that turn conflict into co-creation.
Sources: cyberambassador.tw · civic.ai · Right Livelihood · plurality.net
Takeaways
TAKEAWAYS · ALREADY IN YOUR FEED
Bridging is already on your phone
2012
Pol.is: rank what different groups agree on
2021
Twitter's Birdwatch. Its research paper cites Pol.is.
2022
Renamed Community Notes
2025
Meta adopts X's open-source note algorithm
A note only shows if people who usually disagree both rate it helpful.
X's own illustration of a Community Note: a post claiming whales aren't mammals, with a Readers added context box beneath it
X's Community Notes guide
Sources: Wojcik et al., Birdwatch (2022) · X Community Notes guide · CNBC (2025)
WHERE THIS GOES NEXT
Prosocial media
Rank posts by whether they bridge, not by whether they enrage.
Label each post: popular with which communities, or debated among which. Click to see each side's case.
Figure 4 from the Prosocial Media paper: mock-ups of posts labeled Popular with Americans and Americans are debating this, and a panel showing how Religious Americans, Farmers and Tech Workers are debating
Figure 4, Weyl et al., Prosocial Media (2025)
Source: Weyl, Thorburn, de Keulenaar, Mchangama, Siddarth & Tang, Prosocial Media, arXiv 2502.10834 (2025)
Figure 4 from the Prosocial Media paper: post mock-ups labeled Popular with Americans and Americans are debating this, and a panel showing how Religious Americans, Farmers and Tech Workers debate
Center: Figure 4, Weyl et al., Prosocial Media (2025). Sides: our extrapolation.
Demonstrate the government you want
PRAGUE, 1978 · THE PARALLEL POLIS
Václav Benda in 1995: a bearded man with glasses in a suit
VÁCLAV BENDA Charter 77 dissident
Don't just protest the state. Build what's missing beside it.
“…join forces in creating, slowly but surely, parallel structures that are capable, to a limited degree at least, of supplementing the generally beneficial and necessary functions that are missing in existing structures.”
Living-room universities
Typed, hand-copied books
Banned bands and theater
Close-up of thin, yellowed typewritten samizdat pages
Samizdat: typed carbon copies, passed hand to hand
g0v did the same thing with code.
Sources: Václav Benda, The Parallel Polis (1978) · Photos: Janmartinek, Nkrita, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Build the network before the crisis
Legitimacy is the scarce resource
TAKEAWAY · VOICE NEEDS TEETH
The forced-response ladder
IN TAIWAN, ALL ADVICE
vTaiwan: officials took part, but didn't have to follow
The assembly: fed a draft bill, nothing more
Join: guarantees an answer, not an outcome
Climb the ladder: each rung makes ignoring the public harder.
4 · REQUIRED BY LAW
Mongolia: no constitutional amendment without a deliberative poll first
New York City: participatory budgeting written into the charter
3 · ROUTE TO THE BALLOT
Ireland: citizens' assemblies led to the 2015 and 2018 referendums
Virginia: no statewide citizen initiative, so this rung is closed
2 · PRE-COMMITMENT
Gdańsk: the mayor enacts anything with 80%+ assembly support
Fort Collins, CO: 75%+ gets formally taken up, then went to the ballot
1 · MUST ANSWER, ON A CLOCK
UK petitions: 10,000 signatures earn a response; 100,000, a debate
Taiwan's Join: 5,000 in 60 days. Ostbelgien: parliament must justify every rejection
Sources: UK Parliament · Bertelsmann · Ostbelgien (2019) · Participedia · Healthy Democracy · ConstitutionNet
TOP RUNG · MONGOLIA, 2017
Deliberation, required by law
A 2017 law: no constitutional amendment until a random sample of citizens deliberates on it first.
669 randomly chosen Mongolians spent a weekend at the Government Palace.
Parliament dropped the two ideas they turned against.
Mongolia's Government Palace in Ulaanbaatar, a long white colonnaded building on Sükhbaatar Square under a blue sky
61% → 30%
support for a second chamber, before and after talking
61% → 41%
for electing the president indirectly
Sources: Fishkin & Zandanshatar, ConstitutionNet (2017) · Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab · Photo: Alexkom000, CC BY 4.0
Our democratic protocol is pre-industrial
Imagine it here
IMAGINE IT HERE · SPECULATIVE
What if: a data center comes to the Valley
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
A rezoning request lands. Step one: a plain fact sheet on power, water, noise, taxes and jobs.
Farmers
Neighbors
The developer
The utility
County budget
Ratepayers
Everyone gets the same link to one Pol.is conversation.
Speculative. Not real data.
IMAGINE IT HERE · SPECULATIVE
Three camps, and what sets each apart
MOCK-UP · INVENTED NUMBERS
A mock opinion map with three outlined clusters: a small teal one upper left, a large amber one upper right, a medium purple one at the bottom
GROWTH & PAYCHECKS
KEEP THE VALLEY RURAL
BILL PAYERS
■ Business owners, trades, landowners ready to sell
■ Neighbors, working farms, conservationists
■ Renters, retirees, fixed incomes
GROWTH & PAYCHECKS · ONLY THEM
The county needs the tax base data centers bring.
86%
14%
33%
Landowners should be free to sell to a data center.
84%
19%
41%
KEEP THE VALLEY RURAL · ONLY THEM
No data centers on Valley farmland, period.
12%
91%
37%
Pause all approvals until the aquifer is studied.
9%
87%
44%
BILL PAYERS · ONLY THEM
Data centers are why my power bill went up.
24%
52%
86%
I don't care where it goes. I care what I pay.
33%
11%
81%
Speculative. Camps drawn from Virginia polling and local fights (see notes). Numbers invented.
IMAGINE IT HERE · SPECULATIVE
Where they split, and where they meet
MOCK-UP · INVENTED NUMBERS
WHERE THEY SPLIT
Jobs and taxes outweigh noise and traffic.
84%
6%
31%
I'd take one nearby if it lowered my bill.
71%
9%
78%
End the state's sales-tax break for data centers.
14%
88%
83%
WHERE THEY MEET: THE BRIDGES
Developers, not households, pay for grid upgrades.
81%
96%
95%
Publish each site's water and power use monthly.
73%
95%
91%
Enforce noise limits at the neighbor's property line.
76%
94%
88%
■ GROWTH & PAYCHECKS
■ KEEP THE VALLEY RURAL
■ BILL PAYERS
Speculative. Numbers invented.
IMAGINE IT HERE · SPECULATIVE
Then, face to face, with teeth
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
A livestreamed evening at The Hub. Residents chosen by lottery sit with the developer, the utility and the supervisors.
The agenda is the bridges, not the fight.
Teeth: Virginia already requires a public hearing before rezoning. Add one promise: the board answers the top bridges in writing within 30 days.
Speculative.
IMAGINE IT HERE · CHARLOTTESVILLE
License-plate cameras: still unsettled
Late 2024
10 Flock cameras go up, one on the Corner
Feb 2025
Police credit them with solving shootings and an abduction
June 2025
The chief pauses them over federal access to the data
Dec 2025
The city lets the pilot end
2026
Council still owes a work session on surveillance tech
Safety, privacy and immigration fears, all in one question. A good fit for Pol.is.
Sources: Cavalier Daily (2026) · NBC29 (2025) · Cville Right Now (2025) · Cardinal News (2026)
IMAGINE IT HERE · CHARLOTTESVILLE
Three camps, and the bridges
MOCK-UP · INVENTED NUMBERS
SAFETY FIRST
Neighbors focused on crime
“Plate readers helped solve real crimes here.”
NO FEDERAL PIPELINE
Immigrant-rights and anti-surveillance
“Any plate data could end up helping deportations.”
LEAVE MY CAR ALONE
Libertarian-leaning drivers
“A private company shouldn't log where I drive.”
THE FIGHT, THEN THE BRIDGES
Bring back the license-plate cameras.
86%
7%
34%
No sharing with federal agencies without a warrant.
78%
97%
93%
Delete plate data within days, not months.
71%
95%
94%
Publish an audit of every camera search.
76%
96%
90%
Speculative mock-up. Camps drawn from local reporting; numbers invented.
IMAGINE IT HERE · CHARLOTTESVILLE
Then: an assembly writes the rules
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
10,000
households invited by mail and text
→
~400
say yes
→
40
chosen: age, neighborhood, race, renters and owners
→
2
Saturdays together
Speculative. Numbers are illustrative.
IMAGINE IT HERE · CHARLOTTESVILLE
What the 40 would do
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
HEAR FROM
Police
The ACLU
The vendor
A privacy lawyer
DECIDE
How long data is kept
Who can search it
Audit logs
Which crimes justify a lookup
TEETH
The council promises, in advance, a public up-or-down vote on the package.
The promised surveillance work session is the natural moment.
Speculative.
Geothermal democracy
Renaissance drawing: an armored Odysseus raises a staff over the cowering, half-naked Thersites as soldiers crowd around, tents and ships behind
Odysseus strikes Thersites, Iliad Book 2 · Niccolò dell'Abbate, c. 1552–71, British Museum · public domain
1856 lithograph titled Southern Chivalry, Argument versus Club's: Congressman Preston Brooks beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the Senate floor while other senators watch and laugh
The caning of Charles Sumner, U.S. Senate, May 22, 1856 · after John L. Magee · public domain
Taiwanese legislators in party vests crowd the Legislative Yuan podium, arms tangled as they grab for the microphone
Legislative Yuan, Taipei, June 25, 2013 · AFP / Getty Images
Lawmakers in dark suits pile onto a seated committee chairman who clutches a microphone, the photo behind the 'would' meme
Japan's House of Councillors, Dec 8, 2018 · news photo via Know Your Meme
GEOTHERMAL DEMOCRACY
"Prior to industrialism, rare encounters with powerful thermodynamic effects (such as oil fires in the ground) were met with fear and attempts to suppress these conflagrations. … We must learn to build engines that … convert the potential energy driving these conflicts into useful work."
GLEN WEYL, AUDREY TANG & COMMUNITY · PLURALITY (2024)
Source: Plurality, ch. 5-0, Collaborative Technology and Democracy
Steam rising off the turquoise hot-spring pool of Beitou Thermal Valley in Taipei, with an apartment tower above the trees
AUDREY TANG · 2026
Conflict, seen not as a volcano to flee from, but as geothermal energy to tap.
Taiwan sits where two plates collide. Earthquakes push the island up about half a centimeter a year.
Tang, interview with Ted Hope, Feb 3, 2026 · Photo: Beitou Thermal Valley, Yu tptw, CC BY-SA 4.0
OPEN QUESTIONS
Let's talk
1
How do we make governments listen to broad, at-scale deliberation like this?
2
Could this live inside social media, beyond Community Notes? What would that look like?
3
Could bridging be gamed? What would you do about it?