Twitter Groups
As part of the RSA: Bridging the Divide brief with Twitter, I undertook the challenge of finding a way of bringing people together online by trying to reduce polarisation. This is often found through groups of absolute opinions combined with the unwillingness to listen to the other side. The group I chose to focus on was Vegans, trying to create more of a connection with those who eat and consume animal products.
Problem:
The main problem I found was that there was a lack of information and a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding vegan and plant based diets. I wanted to try and create a space where information and personal stories could be shared without fear of judgement, from all parts of the dietary spectrum. The space needed to be more anonymous than a normal online space might be, to help prevent a fear of judgement that may be stopping people from getting involved.
Solution:
My solution was to create spaces known as Groups on Twitter, in this case a group called ‘Veganer’. The space is similar to a normal Twitter feed, but has a more specific theme and allows for different features such as marking posts in specific ways. It aims to help build more of a community around food, and helps to inform and educate on all different dietary options so people can make more informed decisions, whatever they choose.
App menu showing navigation to Groups feature.
Groups page example, showing thread of conversation between users. It also shows the featured members and resources section, as well as the new tools available when sharing a post.
Tool symbols found in share bar.
These are the features found in Groups posting.
From left to right the symbols are; Image sharing, Resource sharing, Polls, Question posts, and Check Ins. (Image sharing and Polls already exist in Twitter.)
Resource sharing allows users to filter posts specifically as resources, and so can be used to help spread accurate information. Question Posts allow users to pose questions to the Group, and new users can go back and see if their question s have already been asked and answered. Check Ins allow those users on a food journey to check in with others, keeping motivation going between users to stay on their intended journey with food.
To prevent hate speech and encourage a sense of community, I proposed a new policy test to be used before allowing users to join a Group. This encourages users to think more carefully about what they post, and slo helps to remind users of the terms of the website they are using, as most often people agree to terms and conditions without reading them through. The test acts in a similar way to a captcha test, and would appear before a user could join a Group page.
I also wanted to expand this ides beyond the online space, and create something physical people can interact with, either as part of the Group or as a way to discover it. These recipe cards use recipes from the ‘Veganer’ Group to encourage people to use the information they have learnt about food, using both Plant and Meat based meals.
