Trolling democracy: anonymity doesn’t cause conflicts, bad site design does

‘Don’t feed the trolls’, people on social media are told. By forcing people to use their real names online, the managers of online forums hope to shame trolls into silence. But, Jennifer Forestal argues, this fails to tackle the root of the problem: a lack of the ‘close and direct intercourse and attachment’ which John Dewey believed was vital to democratic deliberation. We need to design online spaces where this can happen, rather than indiscriminately multiplying our connections and relying on top-down moderation. Some disruption is necessary when we talk about politics.