Questioning Government Statistics and Reports

Government Statistics and Reports may carry enormous power when presented on the Voter Interface, yet third parties may disagree with them. Perhaps there should be a system that allows complaints against these reports. This would allow journalists and academics to present their own findings and would act as a sort of peer review safeguard by people with specialist knowledge. This would best be supervised by a Parliamentary multi-party committee.

Citizen Journalists

As we have seen after the Iranian general election, anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection can air footage that can effect political debate. Any blogger can express their opinion. However, this information, for all its impact, may not be verified as a report from the best journalists would. Reports may actually be corrupt interpretations or may even be orchestrated by those with hidden agendas.

I don't believe that such concerns are a significant problem for Interactive Democracy, which balances public opinion with Parliamentary expertise and Bloggers with Professional Journalists.

It could be argued that a deluge of information from citizen journalists may add diversity to the debate and thus enhance it. Even though no one person could view every report, a large number of individuals may collectively absorb the information and act accordingly, the Interactive Democracy system collating their opinions.