Parli: building an encyclopaedia of opinion

The Oxford Internet Institute is delighted to welcome Turi Munthe, media entrepreneur and investor, and founder of Demotix.

Parli is an encyclopaedia of opinion, structured as a wiki and enabled by AI. On the premise that there is a finite number of common opinions and arguments around any subject, we seek to ‘map’ them all. We are not a debate site. Our objective is to build an internet-scale media platform showcasing all opinions in a calm, descriptive voice, and to build a powerful back-end data service to help us understand the very nature of opinion. Our social networks – Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – accelerate and monetise online polarisation. We believe Parli can play a major role in calming factionalism by helping its readers understand their own opinions and those of others. A prototype grant from Google’s DNI built the platform we now have.