The founder of digital democracy app Rate Your Leader has been interviewed on international television.
Joel Popoola was interviewed by RT – the UK’s third biggest television news channel – as part of a feature on how the Rate Your Leader app is re-connecting electors and the elected and using abuse-proof technology to combat online harassment.
Speaking from a television studio close to Rate Your Leader’s North East England HQ Joel told RT’s international viewers:
“Too many voters are voting for people they don’t know. We have quite a number of local voters who cannot name their councillors… they don’t have an idea.”
“Likewise they cannot name their MPs, their mayors or their Police and Crime Commissioners. They are voting for people they don’t know”.
An estimated 540,000 people get their news from RT UK every week.
Rate Your Leader is a free app – available from the Apple and Google Marketplaces – which checks users are registered to vote before identifying the MPs, councillors, mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners who serve them.
The app then allows users to communicate direct with these representatives in a way which makes abuse or harassment impossible.
Joel said:
“It’s not healthy for democracy that so few electors know who their local representatives are – our research indicates less than half can name their MP, and roughly one in seven have no idea who their councillor is.
“The Rate Your Leader app lets votes check that they are registered to vote direct from their phone before connecting them directly to the politicians who serve them – allowing them to have meaningful two-way conversations about what matters most to them.
“Most importantly of all – unlike other social media platforms – our technology makes abuse or harassment impossible. If your message isn’t courteous and respectful, it doesn’t get sent.
“It’s huge sign of how Rate Your Leader’s profile is growing internationally and that major international media organisations are taking notice and perceiving us to be authoritative experts on digital democracy”.
The Rate Your Leader app has a five star rating on the Google market, with one reviewer writing “This is the new level of politics…better communication of leaders with the electorates and accountability”.
An ever-increasing number of MPs, councillors, MEPs and Police & Crime Commissioners have already taken advantage of the free democracy app to stay in touch with the people who elect them and to get their message out to confirmed voters in their constituencies, helping them truly understand what matters most to the people who elect them.
