"Change My View": Student Launches Platform To Fix Online Debate

A reddit community created by a Scottish teenager has now evolved into a promising startup aimed at provide a platform where participants share their views and can accept different ones.

In 2013, 17 year-old Kal Turnbull started a subreddit called r/changemyview as a simple forum where people can share their views while inviting others for disagreement.

Kal Turnbull

"I was very aware that I might have grown up in a bit of a small-town bubble," Kal told the BBC. "It's not that we all agreed on everything, we certainly had disagreements. It's just the sense that there's much more than this place.

"Being 17, I wasn't going to start up a website or a company. Reddit provided the perfect platform to try this idea out."

On Change My View, the discourse is governed by rules where a user share a view with proper reasoning and a willingness to accept alternate views.

The commentators are supposed to give meaningful responses that challenge the view in some aspect. Rude and hostile comments are prohibited and if you experience a change in view you award a delta instead of a like.

"CMV aims to discourage a growing problem in today’s society where people relentlessly argue over something at a surface level, without appreciating or attempting to understand the underlying reasons for beliefs. This approach rarely changes views," explains the changemyview.net website.

Change My View now boasts more than 700,000 subscribers, has received acknowledgements from former US President Barack Obama and Tesla boss Elon Musk and is on the horizon of a full fledged startup.