[showerst]

I suspect that as a larger and larger percent of the population has a cringey internet past to look back on, the power of old tweets will fade somewhat. It'll take a while though, and of course depends on how vile the past actions are.

[jelsisi]

I feel like this is an optimistic take. I know a strong number of people that have never thought up a controversial opinion in their life. They will always have that power over the rest of us.

[showerst]

I see it sort of like pot smoking. In about a two decades, we went from "probably the most dangerous drug in the United States today" (Reagan), to "I smoked but I didn't inhale" (Clinton) to "Of course I inhaled, that was the point." (Obama).

It's not that pot suddenly epically skyrocketed in the voting-age population, it's just that enough people either had smoked pot, been around those who did, or watched media that made light of it to realize it wasn't a 100% mark of evil.

[KiranRao0]

I wish I held that view.

My view is that the majority of people will self-censoring and be too afraid of saying anything remotely controversial.