“Engaging with a wide range of opinions is essential for democracy. The U.S. has forgotten the essential value of compromise, which starts with listening to, and acknowledging, the legitimacy of different points of view.
“Filter and preference bubbles will continue to undermine basic democratic processes, like deliberation and compromise, until something comes along to break users out of them.”
– Roger McNamee,
Co-founder of Silver Lake and Founder of Elevation Partners
The Problems in Detail
At Thinkifi we believe that the current platforms for online debate suffer from a number of problems that make it difficult to have reasonable debates about ideas. We’re committed to offering a better way.
- Noise. A low “signal-to-noise” ratio for content makes it difficult to distill knowledge from information.
- Bad Moderation. Existing moderation solutions either (1) allow content that should be suppressed, (2) suppress legitimate content that should be allowed, or (3) don’t scale.
- Privacy Problems. Data is owned by the social platforms and sold to advertisers, leading to a non-existent user privacy and increased surveillance.


- Abuse of Anonymity. Anonymity can be misused to make unconstructive, often hurtful, comments without consequences.
- Trolls. Users that behave provocatively and unconstructively (including by using fear, intimidation, and bullying) detract from the user experience for those seeking clarity and knowledge.
- Bots. Automated participation (bots) results in a lack of trust in content and content signals (upvotes, downvotes, likes, etc.).
- Faulty Business Models. Existing business models incentivize content that promotes anxiety, fear, rage, and disinformation rather than knowledge and truth.
- Advertising. Ads detract from the user experience and distract from clarity and understanding, especially when they can’t be distinguished from real content.
- Amoral AI. AI is being developed hastily without morality, amplifying bad behavior and misinformation.

Fostering a culture of respectful debate
The first step in creating a better solution to the online debate world is in creating a culture to which everyone subscribes. The first step is to require all Thinkifi participants to agree to the following points before engaging.
The Thinkifi Pledge.
- I will be respectful. I will make my points in a calm, measured, and respectful way. I will focus on an intellectual arguments, not those based on fear or anger at individuals.
- I will spread love, not hate. I will come from a positive place focused on increasing the amount of love in the universe. I understand that hate has absolutely no place on Thinkifi.
- I will not be rude or hostile to other users. I understand that harmful or offensive arguments or comments will be removed, and that repeated offenses will result in the permanent suspension of my account.
- I will engage in constructive dialogue. I understand that arguments and comments must contribute meaningfully to the conversation, that off-topic or irrelevant comments will be removed, and that repeated unconstructive behavior will result in the permanent suspension of my account.

I agree to abide by this pledge.