Plurality in Ukraine

A Ukrainian translation of *Plurality* appears in the book's official list, but only as a name, with no translated text. Instead, the book itself uses Ukraine as an example, citing the government app Diia and the Minister of Digital Transformation. Tang has also spoken many times about Diia and communication after the invasion.

With a single smartphone app, you can carry a digital ID and deal with government paperwork. In Ukraine, the government built such an app, and many people use it. The book Plurality by Audrey Tang of Taiwan (Одрі Тан／Одрі Танг in Ukrainian) and E. Glen Weyl uses this app as an example. How, then, has the book been read on the Ukrainian side?

In short

A Ukrainian translation of Plurality is listed by name in the book's official list of translations. But there is no translated text there yet [1].

If anything, it is the book that uses Ukraine as an example: the government app "Дія" (Diia) and the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov [2][5]. Tang has also spoken many times about Diia after the 2022 invasion and about communication in wartime [8][9][10]. However, this survey found almost no Ukrainian-language reporting that discusses the book, Tang or Weyl.

For example

A translation repository in name only. On the book's official guide page (README), the list of translations begins with the line "Ukrainian: https://github.com/vlree-alt/plurality-ukrainian". This line was not added by vlree-alt, the owner of the repository (a storage space on GitHub). It came from a change proposed by another user, taipeicityeth (PR #148, merged on October 16, 2023). Inside the repository, vlree-alt has made 0 changes, and it contains only the files of the English and Traditional Mandarin editions copied from the book's original [1].

Diia as the book cites it. Chapter 4-5 of the book, "Access", gives Ukraine's Diia and Estonia's app "mRiik" as examples in which trusted networks and openness of information work in both directions [2]. The footnote's source is an article in Ukraine's Mezha.Media. According to the article, the Ministry of Digital Transformation (Мінцифри) announced that "команда Дії поділилася кодом застосунку та підходами до UX/UI дизайну" (the Diia team shared the app's code and its approaches to UX/UI design with Estonia) [3].

A conversation with Ukrainian journalists (February 26, 2025). Nataliya Gumenyuk and Angelina Karyakina, co-founders of the Ukrainian organization Public Interest Journalism Lab, interviewed Tang. Gumenyuk said they learned about Tang while looking for a kind of journalism that eases polarization. Tang explained how, in Taiwan, opinions about Uber were made visible as several clusters, and how the "bridging" (connecting people who hold different positions) mechanism of Community Notes works. She also said that a digital minister is also a "minister for or ambassador for plurality" [4].

In more detail

Ukraine in the book

Chapter 4-5 of the book says: "Diia has shown the world how digital technology can break down long-standing corruption." It goes on to describe Estonia's mRiik as an app "largely inspired" by Diia [2].

Chapter 7-0, "Policy", points to the digital ministries emerging around the world as a forum for setting visionary goals in a participatory way. Its "well-known example" is Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation since 2019 [5]. → Digital public infrastructure

The Diia app

According to Ukrainian Wikipedia, Дія is short for "Держава і я" (the state and I). It is the government app, web portal and brand created by the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and in 2024 it had more than 21 million users [6]. On March 13, 2024, it was announced that the app's code would be made public [6]. The diia-open-source organization on GitHub has 47 repositories, most of them released under EUPL-1.2 (the European Union's open-source license) [7].

The same Wikipedia article also has a section on criticism. In early 2022, a group of cybersecurity experts issued a document called "Що не так з Дією" (What is wrong with Diia). It raised issues such as the security of BankID, used for identity verification; how personal data is collected and stored; people who find smartphones hard to use (especially older people) being left behind; and some services being available only through Diia. Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Олексій Вискуб (Oleksii Vyskub) largely denied that the problems existed [6].

Tang on Diia and information in wartime

What follows is Tang's view. At a meeting in December 2022, Tang said that before the war Diia had been a tool for civic participation and transparency, but that "overnight almost" it became a means of gathering information from people [8]. In July of the same year she also said that e-government cyber and defense cyber are "the same infrastructure", and that Diia is the "living proof" of this [9].

In a May 2023 conversation, she said that "the Kyiv experience" had changed the focus of Taiwan's digital ministry. Relying on a single company makes it a chokepoint, so a "plurality of suppliers" is needed, she explained [10].

Ukrainian media have also reported Tang's remarks. In September 2022, MediaSapiens, published by Детектор медіа (Detector Media), reported, citing a Reuters article, that Taiwan is learning from Ukraine's "досвід інфоспротиву" (experience of information resistance). According to the report, Tang said this includes maintaining high-quality communication in real time and bringing people together with jokes and memes [11].

These are Tang's own remarks and a report citing Reuters. This article has not checked what actually happened with Diia or the information war in wartime.

An encounter before the book

In December 2019, Andrey Suprun spoke with Tang online. Suprun said they were in transit to meet the presidential administration in Ukraine. Suprun also mentioned having urged Ukrainian government officials to take note of "radical markets, crowd law" (Radical Markets, and crowd law, in which citizens take part in making laws), and asked how Taiwan's approach could be "copy-paste" (copied as it is) [12].

Tang's answer was that none of these are tools that can simply be copied. First decide who gives the final accountability promise, then design the process on that basis. You need a "legitimacy framework" before embarking on any of this, she said [12]. → Radical Markets

Ukrainian institutions that overlap with the book

Ukraine also has institutions that overlap with the transparency and civic participation the book discusses. According to Ukrainian Wikipedia, Prozorro, the electronic system for public procurement, began with a group of volunteers at the time of the Revolution of Dignity (Революція Гідності) and was launched on February 12, 2015 [13]. Electronic petitions addressed to the President, the parliament or the Cabinet are considered under a special procedure if they gather 25,000 signatures within three months [14]. Participatory budgets, in which citizens decide how part of a budget is spent, began in three cities in 2015 [15]. → Participatory budgeting

However, no Ukrainian-language source has been found that connects these institutions to Plurality.

What is debated

Is Diia a Plurality success story? Neither the book nor the Ukrainian-language sources sum it up that way. The book gives Diia as an example in the context of corruption and openness of information [2]. Ukrainian Wikipedia, meanwhile, lists criticisms about security and about people who cannot use it being left behind [6].
Whose assessments of wartime are these? The assessments of Diia and of communication in wartime are Tang's own remarks or a report citing Reuters [8][9][11]. This article has not verified those facts.
The scope of the search. Several Ukrainian news sites, such as Ukrainska Pravda and Hromadske, could not be searched with their site search. On Ukrainian-language Google News, headlines about Tang, Weyl or Plurality hardly appeared. This does not prove that there is no such reporting.

Common misunderstandings

That there is an official Ukrainian translation. It is only listed by name, and there is no translated text. No public record has been found showing who vlree-alt is or why the translation did not progress [1].

Where it fits in Plurality

Ukraine appears in the book mainly in two places. One is Diia as an example of digital public infrastructure (chapter 4-5, "Access"). The other is Fedorov as an example of digital ministries as actors (chapter 7-0, "Policy") [2][5].

On Tang's side, what stands out is the conversation with Ukrainian journalists about Community Notes and bridging [4], and the discussion of resilience prompted by the invasion [10].

Articles on other countries and regions:

Plurality in the Russian-speaking world — including records of Tang's conversations with Russian speakers
Plurality in Estonia — the country of mRiik, built on Diia
Plurality in Poland
For translations as a whole, see What editions and translations of Plurality exist?

Sources

PR #148 in the book's repository, and vlree-alt/plurality-ukrainian — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/pull/148 / https://github.com/vlree-alt/plurality-ukrainian ［CC0］
Plurality, 4-5 "Access" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/4-5/eng/ ［CC0］
Mezha.Media, "Естонія запускає державний застосунок mRiik, побудований на базі українського додатка Дія" (Estonia launches the state app mRiik, built on the basis of the Ukrainian app Diia) (2023-01-19, in Ukrainian) — https://mezha.media/2023/01/19/diia-mriik/
Interview with Public Interest Journalism Lab (2025-02-26) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2025-02-26-Interview-with-Public-Interest-Journalism-Lab.md ［CC0］
Plurality, 7-0 "Policy" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/7-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Ukrainian Wikipedia, "Дія (сервіс)" — https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D1%96%D1%8F_(%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D1%96%D1%81)
diia-open-source on GitHub — https://github.com/diia-open-source
Meeting with Alliance of Democracies (2022-12-19) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2022-12-19-Meeting-with-Alliance-of-Democracies.md ［CC0］
Lucas Kello visits (2022-07-01) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2022-07-01-Lucas-Kello-visits.md ［CC0］
Conversation with Russell Hsiao (2023-05-15) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2023-05-15-Conversation-with-Russell-Hsiao.md ［CC0］
MediaSapiens (Детектор медіа), "Тайвань хоче перейняти український досвід інфоспротиву під час війни на випадок нападу Китаю" (Taiwan wants to adopt Ukraine's wartime experience of information resistance in case of a Chinese attack) (2022-09-14, in Ukrainian) — https://ms.detector.media/internet/post/30252/2022-09-14-tayvan-khoche-pereynyaty-ukrainskyy-dosvid-infosprotyvu-pid-chas-viyny-na-vypadok-napadu-kytayu/
Conversation with Andrey Suprun and Chronos Productions (2019-12-10) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2019-12-10-Conversation-with-Andrey-Suprun-and-Chronos-Productions.md ［CC0］
Ukrainian Wikipedia, "Prozorro" — https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prozorro ［CC BY-SA 4.0］
Ukrainian Wikipedia, "Електронна петиція в Україні" — https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%95%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%96%D1%8F_%D0%B2_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D1%96 ［CC BY-SA 4.0］
Ukrainian Wikipedia, "Бюджет участі" — https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D1%8E%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%82_%D1%83%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D1%96 ［CC BY-SA 4.0］

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