With over 3,500 followers and counting, the new Instagram page “mocodiscussions” has become an extremely popular account for Montgomery County students to follow. The creator’s main goal was to create an independent and unbiased account where people can anonymously send in their political and personal beliefs. It’s interesting questions and non biased approach to prevalent issues in our society has caused it to become the largest debate account in Maryland.
The creator of mocodiscussions wants to stay anonymous because he doesn’t want users to be turned away from answering based on his personal or political beliefs, but he is a current student in MCPS. He started the account on July 22, 2020, and it is now averaging around 600-700 people per poll, and 500,000 page views total.
“The account grew way faster than I expected, in around 2 months we’ve grown to over 3.5k members,” the creator said. “I was very lucky with the timing of creating my account and it allowed me to grow fast. Also I was the first unbiased discussion platform in MoCo and that attracted people as well.”
Inspired by debate accounts in other states and countries where people have had a place to discuss various political topics and engage in civil debate, the creator decided to start one for MoCo.
The usual format of this account is posting polls with yes or no answers, or discussion questions where users can type their opinion into the box. The creator then compiles all of the data together and posts them in a long post on Instagram with a question in the biography. In the comments below the post, a user can join in with other people giving their opinions and have civil debates with others that have differing opinions.
“I believe it’s very important to question certain standings you may have to make sure that you really do support that policy or person… we need to learn to accept that we are all humans and make mistakes,” WCHS junior Fatemeh Naghavi said. “I love that mocodiscussions serves as an environment where I can learn about other stances on topics, but also share my opinions! It’s a beautiful platform that remains non partisan, and I really appreciate that.”
Through mocodiscussions, the creator has been able to interact with people from all around the county and help make an impact, especially important considering the politically polarized nature of our country ahead of the primary elections.
“The coolest thing that happened to me was getting to interview the SMOB and the prior SMOBs as well as talking with people on the Board of Education to give them feedback on the county issues,” the creator said.
The creator’s goal is to eventually reach ten thousand followers and become a verified account to broaden the scope of people he reaches and can impact.
“I hope to help people express their views more freely as well as use my platform to start fundraisers for the community soon,” the creator said. “I wanted to allow our generation to stop hating each other and discuss controversial issues to stop the polarization as well.”
Article by Ela Jalil of Winston Churchill High School
Graphic by Charles Wang of Walter Johnson High School