“Comment moderation will be the hot new voodoo in both classrooms and media.” I wrote that ten years ago.  Comment moderation will be the hot new voodoo in both classrooms and media. I’m writing that today. The gatekeepers have won. Won what. Power. At what cost. Classroom discussions with a focus on ideas are not viral ditties gone bongo drums on Twitter. Twitter is the troll. In social media, and university classrooms where there is no moderation allowed, such a feedback loop will become in time a paradigm that will implode overwhelmed with voices whose two word vocabulary begins with so and ends with and. My own kids already know the difference between rhetoric and reality. Because I was there to teach them. No one will want to learn in an environment that constrains discovery and exploration and replaces those concepts with sarcasm and humiliation. Bullying works. I fail to see how the idea of the university deals with trolls because that is why they are trolls. You can’t deal with them. They don’t need a gun to wound. All they need is a platform. They don’t need you to believe. They need you to believe in a xerox copy of moral relativism that paints you in a corner. Teaching is moderation. We can all surrender our classrooms and go home. It is also classroom management. The troll just wants you to know what they believe. I don’t believe in anything. It’s not unlike being in a public toilet stall, and some voice from next door wants to know if you believe in Jesus.