
…ntation of the 2016 product was turning a version of position-taking into what we called “debates.” Debates allowed users to freely comment back and forth with anyone on the platform under the framing of a given position. We quickly learned that this level of openness resulted in less substantive discussion, more personal attacks, and fewer participants willing to add their voices: the opposite of our goals. By removing too many barriers, debates empowered the loudest and most aggressive voices in the room and degraded the experience for the vast majority. We reverted to the original position design as we reimagined the rest of the core experience.