Sweden’s National Phone Number, Staffed By Random Swedes

One thing you can always count on the Swedish to do is trust their citizens in ways that would be unfathomable by other nations. A few years ago they launched what many people called the greatest Twitter experiment ever (with mixed results). Now they have declared themselves the “first country in the world with its own phone number,” answered by random Swedes, as a way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of abolishing censorship.

Despite the inevitable hiccups, you have to admire a country that continually gives a public microphone to its people and trusts them to represent the country. It may not always go right, but it certainly offers a model of transparency that we can only wish other countries would follow.