WEBVTT

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Now, this is Joanna.

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Joanna works at a university in Poland.

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And one Saturday morning at 3am,

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she got up, packed her rucksack

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and traveled more than
a thousand kilometers,

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only to have a political argument

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with a stranger.

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His name is Christof,
and he's a customer manager from Germany.

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And the two had never met before.

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They only knew that they were
totally at odds over European politics,

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over migration, or the relationship
to Russia or whatever.

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And they were arguing for almost one day.

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And after that, Joanna sent me
a somewhat irritating email.

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"That was really cool, and I enjoyed
every single minute of it!"

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(Laughter)

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So these are Tom from the UK
and Nils from Germany.

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They also were strangers,

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and they are both supporters
of their local football team,

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as you may imagine, Borussia Dortmund
and Tottenham Hotspurs.

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And so they met on the very spot
where football roots were invented,

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on some field in Cambridge.

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And they didn't argue about football,

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but about Brexit.

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And after talking for many hours
about this contentious topic,

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they also sent a rather unexpected email.

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"It was delightful, and we both
enjoyed it very much."

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(Laughter)

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So in spring 2019,

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more than 17,000 Europeans
from 33 countries

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signed up to have a political argument.

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Thousands crossed their borders to meet
a stranger with a different opinion,

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and they were all part of a project
called "Europe Talks."

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Now, talking about politics
amongst people with different opinions

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has become really difficult,

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not only in Europe.

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Families are splitting,
friends no longer talk to each other.

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We stay in our bubbles.

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And these so-called filter bubbles
are amplified by social media,

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but they are not,
in the core, a digital product.

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The filter bubble has always been there.

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It's in our minds.

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As many studies repeatedly have shown,

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we, for example, ignore effects
that contradict our convictions.

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So correcting fake news
is definitely necessary,

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but it's not sufficient
to get a divided society

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to rethink itself.

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Fortunately, according to
at least some research,

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there may be a simple way
to get a new perspective:

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a personal one-on-one discussion

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with someone who doesn't
have your opinion.

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It enables you to see
the world in a new way,

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through someone else's eyes.

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Now, I'm the editor of "ZEIT ONLINE,"

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one of the major digital
news organizations in Germany.

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And we started what became "Europe Talks"
as a really modest editorial exercise.

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As many journalists,

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we were impressed by Trump and by Brexit,

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and Germany was getting divided, too,
especially over the issue of migration.

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So the arrival of more than
a million refugees in 2015 and 2016

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dominated somewhat the debate.

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And when we were thinking
about our own upcoming election in 2017,

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we definitely knew that we had to reinvent
the way we were dealing with politics.

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So digital nerds that we are,

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we came up with obviously
many very strange digital product ideas,

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one of them being a Tinder for politics --

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(Laughter)

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a dating platform for political opposites,

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a tool that could help get people
together with different opinions.

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And we decided to test it

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and launched what techies would call
a "minimum viable product."

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So it was really simple.

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We called it "Deutschland spricht" --
"Germany Talks" --

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and we started with that in May 2017.

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And it was really simple.

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We used mainly Google Forms,

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a tool that each and every one of us here
can use to make surveys online.

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And everywhere in our content,
we embedded simple questions like this:

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"Did Germany take in too many refugees?"

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You click yes or no.

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We asked you more questions, like,
"Does the West treat Russia fairly?"

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or, "Should gay couples
be allowed to marry?"

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And if you answered all these questions,
we asked one more question:

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"Hey, would you like to meet a neighbor
who totally disagrees with you?"

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(Laughter)

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So this was a really simple experiment
with no budget whatsoever.

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We expected some
hundred-ish people to register,

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and we planned to match them
by hand, the pairs.

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And after one day,
1,000 people had registered.

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And after some weeks,
12,000 Germans had signed up

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to meet someone else
with a different opinion.

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So we had a problem.

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(Laughter)

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We hacked a quick and dirty algorithm

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that would find
the perfect Tinder matches,

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like people living as close as possible
having answered the questions

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as differently as possible.

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We introduced them via email.

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And, as you may imagine,
we had many concerns.

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Maybe no one would show up in real life.

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Maybe all the discussions
in real life would be awful.

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Or maybe we had an axe murderer
in our database.

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(Laughter)

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But then, on a Sunday in June 2017,

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something beautiful happened.

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Thousands of Germans met in pairs
and talked about politics peacefully.

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Like Anno.

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He's a former policeman who's against --
or was against -- gay marriage,

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and Anne, she's an engineer who lives
in a domestic partnership

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with another woman.

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And they were talking
for hours about all the topics

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where they had different opinions.

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At one point, Anno told us later,

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he realized that Anne was hurt
by his statements about gay marriage,

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and he started to question
his own assumptions.

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And after talking for three hours,

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Anne invited Anno to her summer party,

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and today, years later,

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they still meet from time to time
and are friends.

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So our algorithm matched,
for example, this court bailiff.

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He's also a spokesperson of the right-wing
populist party AfD in Germany,

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and this counselor for pregnant women.

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She used to be an active member
of the Green Party.

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We even matched this professor
and his student.

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(Laughter)

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It's an algorithm.

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(Laughter)

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We also matched a father-in-law
and his very own daughter-in-law,

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because, obviously, they live close by
but have really different opinions.

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So as a general rule,

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we did not observe, record,
document the discussions,

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because we didn't want
people to perform in any way.

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But I made an exception.

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I took part myself.

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And so I met in my trendy Berlin
neighborhood called Prenzlauer Berg,

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I met Mirko.

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This is me talking to Mirko.
Mirko didn't want to be in the picture.

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He's a young plant operator,

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and he looked like
all the hipsters in our area,

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like with a beard and a beanie.

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We were talking for hours,
and I found him to be a wonderful person.

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And despite the fact that we had
really different opinions

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about most of the topics --

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maybe with the exception
of women's rights,

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where I couldn't comprehend
his thoughts --

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it was really nice.

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After our discussion, I Googled Mirko.

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And I found out that in his teenage years,
he used to be a neo-Nazi.

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So I called him and asked,

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"Hey, why didn't you tell me?"

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And he said, "You know, I didn't tell you
because I want to get over it.

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I just don't want
to talk about it anymore."

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I thought that people with
a history like that could never change,

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and I had to rethink my assumptions,

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as did many of the participants
who sent us thousands of emails

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and also selfies.

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No violence was recorded whatsoever.

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(Laughter)

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And we just don't know
if some of the pairs got married.

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(Laughter)

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But, at least, we were really excited
and wanted to do it again,

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especially in version 2.0,

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wanted to expand the diversity
of the participants,

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because obviously in the first round,
they were mainly our readers.

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And so we embraced our competition

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and asked other media outlets to join.

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We coordinated via Slack.

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And this live collaboration
among 11 major German media houses

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was definitely a first in Germany.

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The numbers more than doubled:
28,000 people applied this time.

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And the German president --

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you see him here
in the center of the picture --

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became our patron.

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And so, thousands of Germans met again
in the summer of 2018

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to talk to someone else
with a different opinion.

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Some of the pairs we invited
to Berlin to a special event.

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And there, this picture was taken,

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until today my favorite symbol
for "Germany Talks."

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You see Henrik,
a bus driver and boxing trainer,

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and Engelbert, the director
of a children's help center.

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They answered all of the seven questions
we asked differently.

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They had never met before this day,

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and they had a really intensive discussion

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and seemed to get along anyway

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with each other.

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So this time we also wanted to know

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if the discussion would have
any impact on the participants.

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So we asked researchers
to survey the participants.

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And two-thirds of the participants said
that they learned something

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about their partner's attitudes.

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Sixty percent agreed
that their viewpoints converged.

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The level of trust in society
seemed also higher after the event,

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according to the researchers.

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Ninety percent said that
they enjoyed their discussion.

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Ten percent said they didn't
enjoy their discussion,

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eight percent only because,
simply, their partner didn't show up.

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(Laughter)

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After "Germany Talks," we got approached
by many international media outlets,

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and we decided this time to build
a serious and secure platform.

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We called it "My Country Talks."

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And in this short period of time,
"My Country Talks" has already been used

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for more than a dozen
local and national events

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like "Het grote gelijk" in Belgium
or "Suomi puhuu" in Finland

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or "Britain Talks" in the UK.

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And as I mentioned at the beginning,
we also launched "Europe Talks,"

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together with 15
international media partners,

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from the "Financial Times" in the UK
to "Helsingin Sanomat" in Finland.

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Thousands of Europeans met
with a total stranger

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to argue about politics.

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So far, we have been approached
by more than 150 global media outlets,

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and maybe someday there will be
something like "The World Talks,"

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with hundreds of thousands
of participants.

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But what matters here are not the numbers,

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obviously.

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What matters here is ...

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Whenever two people meet
to talk in person for hours

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without anyone else listening,

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they change.

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And so do our societies.

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They change little by little,
discussion by discussion.

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What matters here is that we relearn

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how to have these
face-to-face discussions,

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without anyone else listening,

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with a stranger.

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Not only with a stranger
we are introduced to

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by a Tinder for politics,

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but also with a stranger in a pub
or in a gym or at a conference.

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So please meet someone

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and have an argument

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and enjoy it very much.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Wow!

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(Applause)