Maybe you already have your eye on a certain political candidate but want to learn more about him or her. Or perhaps you’re not so familiar with the 2016 candidates and would like to know which ones have the same principles and viewpoints as you.
Either way, you’ll certainly love the new tool that search engine Bing has created. It’s called the Bing Political Index (aka BPI), and it’s specially designed to help you learn more about the U.S. 2016 election candidates with just a few clicks. You can still do a more in-depth research about each candidate; in fact, Bing highly recommends its users to “further research this election and the candidates”. But, if you don’t have a lot of time and are looking for easy-to-digest information for a quick read, the BPI tool is perfect for you.
To use the tool, simply type “Election 2016” on the Bing search box or go to bing.com/elections. The BPI will appear before any search results, allowing you to have easy access to it. It comes with three tabs – “Bing Political Index”, “Candidates”, and “Timeline” – and each tab give you comprehensive information about certain aspects of the 2016 election.
The “Bing Political Index” tab, for instance, lets you compare the stances of candidates on top 10 political issues (including abortion, LGBT rights, healthcare, immigration, gun control and education) with those of the average American. You’ll see how progressive or conservative a candidate is and find out if his stance is similar or not with the American public’s opinion.
The “Candidates” tab also gives insights about the candidates’ political stances, but on an individual basis. Just hover your mouse on the candidate you’d like to know more about, and a page that’s dedicated to him or her will appear. The page has several tabs; if you click on the “Issues” tab, you’ll see the candidate’s stances on the same 10 political issues. You can then compare his or her stances with the U.S. public opinion or with those of another candidate. If you click on the “Trends” tab, you’ll see social media posts that mention the candidate and learn about the top Bing search keywords about him or her.
The third main tab in the BPI tool is the “Timeline” tab. It features a timeline of general election milestones in the past as well as election-related events that are scheduled to take place in the future.
Bing strives to provide the most accurate and objective information possible through the BPI tool. To bring it to life, the Bing Predicts Team trawled through terabytes of data (both from Bing searches and social media), while the experts from the non-profit organization Ontheissues.org provided comprehensive candidate analysis. They then used machine learning models to process the data.
The best thing about the BPI tool is that it’s not static. Bing understands that people’s stances on issues can shift as the elections near, which is why it will update the tool every month. This way, the BPI will reflect the changes in candidate stances and public opinion and provide everyone with relevant, up-to-date info.
