A Sense-Making System for Society
Making Disagreement Useful Again
We live in an age of constant debate, but very little of it produces understanding, consensus, or solutions. Society Speaks is designed to do the opposite.
Social platforms reward outrage, certainty, and speed, making society appear more divided than it really is. Society Speaks brings nuance back into public debate, enables people to disagree agreeably, and surfaces the insight needed to move from noise towards shared understanding and, ultimately, better decisions.
How Society Speaks Works
We do not group people by who they say they are. We group them by how they actually respond.
Instead of likes, comments, or demographics, Society Speaks is built around structured participation:
- 1 Clear statements on real issues
- 2 Simple voting (agree / disagree / unsure)
- 3 Optional short explanations for your reasoning
Using machine learning inspired by Pol.is, we analyse voting patterns to identify natural opinion clusters, without labels, ideological assumptions, or demographic bias. This reveals how views actually form and overlap, something polls and comment sections consistently fail to capture.
What the System Reveals
Society Speaks does not just show what people think. It produces three distinct types of insight:
Consensus Statements
Ideas with broad agreement across participants, showing where society already aligns.
Bridge Statements
Ideas that resonate across different opinion clusters, even when people disagree elsewhere. These are the most actionable insights for progress.
Divisive Statements
Genuine fault lines where opinions are split. Surfacing these honestly shows where deeper work is needed.
Together, these outputs create a far more accurate picture of public opinion than binary polls or adversarial debate.
From News to Deliberation
Society Speaks does not treat news as content to be consumed, but as input into deliberation.
Real journalism is:
- Curated for civic relevance, not virality
- Filtered to avoid sensational framing
- Transformed into balanced prompts and seed statements
This turns passive news consumption into thoughtful participation and shifts the focus from headlines to the underlying issues they point to.
The Daily Question
The Daily Question is the entry point.
- One carefully chosen question each day
- Two minutes to respond
- Insight revealed only after you have thought for yourself
Over time, this creates something rare: a longitudinal, nuanced view of public opinion, showing not just where society stands, but how views evolve, converge, or diverge over time. It is a small daily habit with cumulative civic value.
Why This Matters
The biggest problem in modern democracy is not disagreement. It is distorted disagreement.
Society Speaks helps correct that by:
- Reducing knee-jerk reactions
- Making disagreement less hostile
- Revealing common ground without erasing difference
- Showing where compromise is possible and where it is not
This kind of understanding is a prerequisite for solving real-world problems.
For Policymakers and Civic Leaders
Society Speaks does not claim to produce policy by itself. What it produces is something more fundamental:
- Evidence-based understanding of public opinion
- Clarity on where consensus exists
- Visibility into bridge ideas that can unite groups
- Honesty about genuine divisions that require deeper work
That insight can inform policymakers, journalists, civic organisations, and anyone trying to design solutions that are both ambitious and legitimate. Better policy starts with better understanding. Society Speaks focuses on that first step.
Open Source & Community Driven
Society Speaks is proudly open source and community driven. We believe in transparency and collaboration, which is why our entire codebase is available on GitHub for anyone to explore, contribute to, or learn from.
Your sponsorship helps keep Society Speaks free, independent, and continuously improving. Every contribution supports our infrastructure costs and enables us to develop new features that empower meaningful public discourse.
Ready to Make Your Voice Heard?
Start with today's question or explore ongoing discussions.