Systems for large scale deliberation have resolved polarized issues and
shifted agenda setting into the public's hands. These systems integrate
bridging-based ranking algorithms - including group informed consensus
implemented in Polis and the continuous matrix factorization approach
implemented by Twitter Birdwatch - making it possible to highlight statements
which enjoy broad support from a diversity of opinion groups.
Polis has been productively employed to foster more constructive political
deliberation at nation scale in law making exercises. Twitter Birdwatch is
implemented with the intention of addressing misinformation in the global
public square. From one perspective, Twitter Birdwatch can be viewed as an
anti-misinformation system which has deliberative aspects. But it can also be
viewed as a first step towards a generalized deliberative system, using
Twitter's misinformation problem as a proving ground.
In this paper, we propose that Twitter could adapt Birdwatch to produce maps
of public opinion. We describe a system in five parts for generalizing
Birdwatch: activation of a deliberative system and topic selection, population
sampling and the role of expert networks, deliberation, reporting interpretable
results and finally distribution of the results to the public and those in
power