“I want you to imagine something. Imagine an inner-city school with a bunch of poor kids, and a teacher who can barely afford to pay (his or her) rent, and how much stress builds upon stress … the person who is in the position of power … lashes out because of that stress on the person that does not have power, which would be the student.”
This was one answer to the widely discussed question of arming teachers in public schools. However, these words weren’t uttered on CNN, Fox News, or even Young Turks. A man named Niko House recorded them onto Micgoat, a video debate app created, as its co-founder Justin Zhen described, to be “part of the everyday dialogue,” in an interview with TechCrunch.
Open up the app and users can record their opinions on video, uploading them under multiple categories, giving answers to every question from their opinion on the Trump administration to the NFL’s issue with national anthem kneeling. People can react or comment with a separate video, almost like a long-form version of Snapchat.
Micgoat has about 10,000 downloads and users as of March 2018, Micgoat CEO Marta Lopata told Red Alert Politics. Opening statements are allowed one minute, and responses are 30 seconds.
The platform has attracted political candidates and young people of all views. Micgoat has received short videos from Stephen Mackenzie, a Republican candidate running for Indiana’s 6th Congressional District and Independent candidate Ed Rushman, running for California’s 46th District seat on a platform for legalizing DACA recipients. Major political parties, especially the Republican Party, which could use an infusion of youth and tech, could and should look into how Micgoat is changing public debate.
The key to Micgoat – a name created from the merging of “microphone” and ”greatest of all time” – is being different from other noisemakers in media. Just browse their library of user videos thus far, and you won’t find name calling or screaming. It’s a platform for civil conversation. Much of this is due to the face-to-face aspect that co-founder Justin Zhan emphasized when the team drew up a business model. It’s also partially due to the lack of anonymity, as users have to sign up with Facebook, which exposes their identities.
“When you force someone to put their face on video, and they have to look someone in the eye, and it’s public, we haven’t seen that problem (of verbal abuse) at all,” Zhan told Red Alert Politics.
Currently, Micgoat is only available on iTunes and for Apple products, but Lopata believes they will have their platform available for Android systems by the summer … just in time to impact midterm elections.
