[wwilson]

If I had been wearing my fiendish CEO hat at the time, I might have even said something like: "somebody pointing this out will be a great way to jumpstart discussion in the comments."

One of the evilest tricks in marketing to developers is to ensure your post contains one small inaccuracy so somebody gets nerdsniped... not that I have ever done that.

[1-more]

A sort of broadening of Cunningham's Law (the fastest way to get an answer online is not by posting the question, but by posting the wrong answer—very true in my experience). If there's no issue of fact at hand, then you end up getting some engagement about the intentional malapropism/misattribution/mistake/whatever and then the forum rules tend to herd participants back to discussing the matter at hand: your company.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law

[jpadkins]

Seth Godin made the case that its more important for people to make remarks than to be favorable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Cow:_Transform_Your_Bus...)

Trump did this a lot with the legacy media in his first term. He would make inaccurate statements to the media on the topic he wanted to be in the spotlight, and the media would jump to "fact check" him. Guess what, now everyone is talking about illegal immigration, tariffs, or whatever subject Trump thought was to their advantage.

[amalcon]

"No such thing as bad publicity" is a very old idea. That quote is usually attributed to PT Barnum, but the idea is much older than him.

[comicjk]

People always need to be reminded, though. It seems to be in human nature to fear bad publicity, and the people who fear it less end up with disproportionate power as a result.