A Silicon Valley-based classics scholar argued in a Washington Post op-ed that Socrates was the original “troll,” whose interrogative method has helped inspire some of the worst elements of online political culture.

In a Thursday op-ed titled “The problems with online ‘debate me’ culture,” Donna Zuckerberg lamented what she described as “that bane of online discourse, the man who appears seemingly out of nowhere to insist on a debate.”