Video chat with strangers who disagree with you.

What a chat looks like

1. 1. A question you have taken a position on — three to start, more whenever you like. Something like: should voting be compulsory?

2. 2. A stranger who answered it the other way, in the language you chose. If nobody is waiting yet, you stay in the queue and keep answering meanwhile.

3. 3. Video, just the two of you. Stay as long as it is good, up to twenty minutes — or tap Next, and you are talking to somebody else.

4. 4. After a real conversation, one question to you alone: did your view change? After a skip, nothing at all.

And when nobody is online

Every question has a page where people write, reply to each other, and mark what is worth reading. One rule holds it together: nothing is readable until you have taken a position on the question yourself, so everybody there has said where they stand. It is the half of Splivex that works at three in the morning.

Is this for you?

In more detail

For anyone who wants to know exactly how it works before deciding.

What Splivex is not

Before you start

How long does a chat last?

As long as you both want, up to twenty minutes. You can tap Next at any time and meet somebody else; leaving in the first minute is a skip and does not count towards anything. The clock only starts once both of you are actually in the room, so waiting for the other person does not eat into it.

How do you find someone who disagrees?

From the questions you answered. Splivex looks for somebody who took the opposite position on a question you have both answered, in the language you picked for conversations, and who is not somebody you spoke to a moment ago. The more questions you answer, the faster that goes — one answer is enough to start searching.

Do I have to show my face?

Yes. Camera and microphone are required — that is the point of it. A conversation where one side is a text box is the thing Splivex exists to replace.

What happens with what I say?

Nothing is recorded. The conversation goes directly from browser to browser and never reaches our servers. About one connection in five cannot go direct — a company firewall, a mobile network — and then a relay forwards the packets, encrypted between the two of you and unreadable to it. The direct connection has one consequence worth knowing: your browser and theirs exchange IP addresses with each other, because that is how two browsers find each other without a server in between. We never see them. What stays afterwards is the question, how long you talked, and whether something moved — not a word of it. The single exception: if somebody reports you, one still frame is captured at that moment and shown to moderation. It is deleted 30 days after the case is closed.

What if somebody behaves badly?

One button ends the conversation and sends a report to moderation, together with a single still frame of the other person from that moment. You can tick blocking at the same time — then the two of you are never matched again, in either direction. Reports are read by a person, and every decision has to carry a reason.

Do I need an account?

Not to try it. Two conversations run without one — and a skip in the first minute does not use one up. You confirm a few notes and start answering. The trial shows a selection of the questions rather than all of them. Whatever you answer stays if you decide to keep it.

Does it cost anything?

No. Splivex is free to use, there is nothing to buy and no advertising.

Found something broken, or something that could be better? If you have an account, there is a box in your settings, otherwise the address is in the imprint.