COMPARED
Frankly is an open-source, video-based platform for constructive dialogue and collaborative decision-making, run by Harvard's Applied Social Media Lab at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and co-developed with Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig. It is built for facilitated conversations across differences, with templates for different kinds of events and flexible facilitation options. Its code was opened in 2025.
True Causes is built around a different product: not the conversation, but a map. People write causes alone, then decide one pair at a time whether one cause significantly influences another, and a link counts only when three quarters agree.
| Frankly | True Causes | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A platform for facilitated video dialogue | A structured method for finding causes, run online |
| How people take part | Live video conversation, facilitated | Writing and voting at each person's own pace; an optional video call per group |
| What comes out | The conversation and what the group takes from it | A map of causes, deepest first, with every disagreement kept on it |
| Names | Participants meet on video | Nobody is named inside a room |
| Open source | Yes | Hosted, not open source. The results are open: a public room’s map, every claim (JSON) and every judged pair with its vote counts (CSV) can be read and downloaded without an account |
| Group matching | Algorithmic matching for diverse breakout groups | Groups dealt by lot, mixed by perspective where members give one |
| Facilitation | Embedded prompts; hostless facilitation options | The stages carry the process; a steward closes them, or a clock does. A course teaches stewards the method |
| Ideas and voting | Idea submission, voting, polls and surveys | Cards, five stickers each to shortlist, then one pair at a time at three quarters |
| Moderation | Moderated discussion | An optional AI reading before a card or turn posts; if it reads as an attack on a person, the author alone is told and decides |
| Languages | Translation; Spanish and Chinese | Multilingual: the interface is in 57 languages; cards arriving from rooms in other languages are translated, with the original kept |
| Export | Data export | Every judged pair with its votes (CSV), every claim (JSON), the map as a picture or a live embed |
When the goal is the conversation itself: people who disagree meeting, listening, and understanding each other, with a facilitator and a clear format.
When the goal is a shared account of a problem's causes that the group has certified, and that can be compared across many groups and published.
Checked in September 2026. Product names belong to their owners. If anything here about another product is out of date or unfair, write to hello@mg.truecauses.org and we will correct it.
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