Has Slido Become a Barrier to Real Dialogue?
Slido presents itself as a platform for safe, inclusive audience engagement — a place where anyone can ask questions without fear or interruption. In theory, this is commendable. In practice, however, I’ve found this promise to be an illusion.At a recent New Scientist event, more than 200 questions were submitted through Slido. Yet during the Q&A, only a handful were selected — and not by the speakers or audience, but by a moderator who filtered them through their own lens. This introduces a disturbing form of gatekeeping: valid questions may be dismissed for being too challenging, off-narrative, or simply misunderstood by the moderator.This raises troubling questions: Who decides what gets asked? On what criteria? What are we losing when questions are pre-screened rather than asked live? This isn’t just about a single event — it's about a cultural shift. What happened to courage,
