[ianstallings]

I've sanitized all of my social media because, as a startup founder, the magnifying glass of "due diligence" is hovering over me at all times. The last thing I need is a problem because of something trivial.

In fact, regarding twitter, my policy is to never use it except to link to other things or retweet someone else's post. Because a 140 character statement on a complex topic is a recipe for disaster.

[leereeves]

I find it worrying that the only people who feel safe speaking publicly on so many issues are people who profit from controversy and people with nothing to lose.

[VLM]

Its the soft dictatorship concept. If you want to eliminate free speech you can do with with secret police and firing squads, but a more advanced, civilized, and more importantly, cheaper, way to do it is implement intensive self censorship. Sure, you can say anything you want, as long as it offends no one on the entire internet. What little is left is no threat to those in power. How bout the weather out there?

Its like the old problem of how does an aristocracy keep itself in power? Well the expensive, crude, and unreliable method is lots of soldiers and aggressive top down force, but a more advanced, cheaper, reliable method is to propose two identical figurehead leaders with wildly varying PR campaigns and convince the public that selecting between the identical figureheads is the definition of freedom.