Show HN: Dinnertable.chat – fixing the online echo chamber problem

dinnertable.chat

4 points·jadbox··3 comments

Hey folks, I'm the founder of DTC, and I super appreciate your time checking us out. We started from a simple premise: "how do we break up echo chambers online, while allow people to better express their views."

Dinnertable.chat [DTC] is a mobile app and web platform that facilitates real-time discussions and debates on a range of social and political issues. Designed to act as a virtual matchmaker for people with political differences, DTC lets users choose a topic they are interested in or have a position on, then connects them with someone who holds an appropriately contrasting viewpoint. Matched users then each control a fun virtual character who represents their respective words and emotions on-screen during the conversation. The vision of Dinnertable.chat is to provide an accessible tool that helps engage people in good-faith dialogue for the purpose of finding common ground through live conversation.

Thanks for reading this Tuesday morning!

EDIT: Here's the direct link to the promo video that's a quicker overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8cW-ezofRM

Oh this is interesting, but how do you plan to solve for toxic behavior on the platform?

I liked the animated characters on the homepage promo video and especially the TOX-vs-BNN news network jab in the intro.

Thanks, we spent a lot of time working on the video! We plan to mitigate the toxic behavior through a behavior rating system (similar to Overwatch). At the end of the session, users rate the other person in the discussion upon both positive and negative qualities (Respectful, Knowledgeable, Charismatic... Absent, Aggressive, Crude, Interruptive).

Over time, we use these ratings to determine who to match, or just who to ban if they are acting in bad faith conversations.

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