Student developer tackles political apathy with AI driven app ‘Politiclear’

Frustrated by the growing gap between young people and the democratic process, fifth-year student Mohab Mohamed has developed a digital solution to strip the jargon and bias out of political reporting.

His project, Politiclear, was born from a simple observation: his peers weren’t avoiding politics because they didn’t care, but because they felt locked out by the way news is delivered.

“The more I talked to my friends, the more I realised that young people just aren’t interested in politics,” Mohab explained. “That made me ask why that is.”

To find the answer, Mohab conducted extensive surveys with fellow students and interviewed local Longford Westmeath TD, Sorcha Clarke. The data revealed a consistent theme: young voters find political coverage “too complicated, not organised, and sometimes biased”.

In response to those findings, Mohab built an app that acts as a translator for complex news. Users can upload links to political articles, which the system then scans using an algorithm designed to identify linguistic patterns.

“The system checks for negative wording, bias, and other factors, to help make the information clearer,” Mohab said. “People can take links from articles and post them on the app or website.”

By highlighting loaded language and simplifying dense terminology, the app allows users to form their own opinions based on facts rather than rhetoric.

The effectiveness of the app was put to the test in a local classroom. According to Mohab, the shift in student attitudes was immediate.

“A lot of them felt the app made the news much clearer,” he noted. “They were more inclined to look into politics and found it less boring and more interesting.”

Despite his own passion for the subject, and a potential future career in the field, Mohab is adamant that his tool remains neutral.

“I can’t give my own opinions through it,” he stressed. “The whole idea is not to influence people, but to educate them.”