Thursday, January 14, 2021

Web

I have tried to always remember that the internet is forever. I declined to post hilarious anecdotes about the children when they were too young to read them, since one day they would be old enough to be embarrassed. I've tried to be very careful to not disparage my colleagues at work--which fortunately is easy. Now and then I tried a cheap joke on some other sites that I'd not do today, and some comments need context, but on the whole I don't think I've been unfair, or written much that I wouldn't mind my name being on. Which is not to say a few colleagues might be horrified at even mild objections to their worldview.

Not everybody keeps away from personalities, though, and Second City Cop seems to have been forced off the air. I presume from that statement that Google was about to breach anonymity of the commenters, who would doubtless have been forced out of work. (Legal, shmegal, it's Chicago, and the FOP probably wouldn't be any help.) Something similar happened to Star Slate Codex--the author's name was revealed and his livelihood threatened.

Other web authors have gotten death threats.

Don't take being able to write freely, or read freely, for granted.

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