Scoring
How do you rank MEPs?
Meep Meep awards points and penalties based on notable instances of good or bad conduct, related to our core themes. We look for key points where a politician had the opportunity to live up to our principles, and either passed or failed.
This includes the directives that politicians vote for, as well as their conduct and statements during the law-making process. Our primary concern is how the MEPs contributed to specific consequences for the public, real or potential. The relevant source data comes from the EU as much as possible, and the conditions are applied equally to the entire parliament. We also look for absenses and vote corrections.
We do sometimes award points to individuals, but only if that individual played a formal role in a particular event. For example, the Rapporteur is the main person responsible for a given parliamentary proposal. This role means that their statements and actions will be more closely scrutinized.
The final tally of points is used to rank the MEPs on a scale from 0 to 100, both across the EU and inside their respective countries.
What criteria do you judge by?
The three pillars of Digital Freedom, Enlightened Policy and Tolerant Humanism are divided into positive and negative categories, shown below. An action can qualify for any of these, earning one or more positive or negative points. Half points are awarded for partial responsibility, or when inaction contributed to a negative outcome.
Digital Freedom
Free Speech
Free expression, online and offline
Open Access
Public access to knowledge and culture
Privacy
Privacy, anonymity and control over personal data
Security
Secure networks and end-to-end encryption
Censorship
Censorship, both government and private sector
Digital Rights
Digital restrictions on cultural and scientific work
Tracking
Personal tracking and data breaches
Insecurity
Back doors, malware and mass surveillanceEnlightened Policy
Rationality
Factual and reproducible research and analysis
Good Faith
Good faith debate and open exchange of ideas
Transparency
Equal access and transparency in decisions
Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing and freedom of information
Misinformation
Misrepresented and manufactured information
Intimidation
Intimidation, strong-arming and blackmail
Collusion
Collusion, conflicts of interest and bribes
Secrecy
Secret negotiations, prosecutions and cover upsTolerant Humanism
Dignity
Respect and dignity for all walks of life
Autonomy
Tolerance through autonomy of individuals
Proportionality
Proportionality and symmetry of rights and duties
Accountability
Accountability for responsibility
Persecution
Social persecution, bullying and ostracization
Authoritarianism
Discrimination, prohibition and totalitarianism
Special Pleading
Special pleading, rent seeking and legal loopholes
Irresponsibility
Blame shifting, broken agreements and negligenceHow is this objective?
Our political platform centers on a few pillars we believe are neglected by today's politics, favoring individual autonomy with an eye on the 21st century. We do not claim to be unbiased, on the contrary, we explicitly aim to promote our values. The issues we select for inclusion are also entirely hand-picked.
However, Meep Meep's scoring conditions apply equally to all MEPs, based on automated processing of official records, and the final outcome is the sum of each individual's own decisions. As such, while we are not unbiased, we are accurate in what we report, with individual links to the sources, separating the fact from the opinion.
Even if you disagree with one of our assessments, you can review the facts yourself, and come away better informed.
Why do you penalize vote corrections?
If an MEP votes incorrectly, they can correct it after the fact. However even if there are sufficient corrections to flip the result, nothing happens. These undemocratic errors then persist in our laws and policies.
Therefor any MEP who votes incorrectly should be treated as having neglected their responsibilities, as well as be judged by their initial vote, not their corrected vote, which is purely ceremonial. This is part of how we score accountability.