I self-censor basically 24/7

Frankly im more concerned about my skin color leading to disadvantages or straight up violence. I live in a majority white country that is sliding towards fascism and I have 0 faith libs will resist in any serious manner.

Not saying you shouldnt be careful if you are in any way out in the open about your radical politics.

My workplace is thankfully pretty chill and I dont plan on changing it anytime soon if I can avoid it.

getting a knock on the door from the police about your political beliefs?

This one has already happened to me. Why there's now some manner of weapon in every room of my home, just in case the next time, it's less 'questioning' and more 'raiding'. It's not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. For any and all of us. I may avoid the situations that could lose me what I have... But if it comes to me I won't go quiet.

I remember one place of employment, if there was list of top 100 woke companies sorted by how often right wingers complain about how woke it is, this company is not low on that list, I just won't say it's name for woke reasons. I'm 100% confident that if any a person of C-Suite there found out my political beliefs, they'd probably slap my name on my next yearly layoff.

I remember my first day, an older male coworker had a plaque on his desk that said "I went to Thailand... for a thing." and was an open libertarian. It's been years and he's still working there.

I don't think it'll happen tbh. My job involves very little interaction with others and when politics does come up i don't think I've heard a single person talk about Isn'trael or Russia Ukraine or anything. Maybe in the future it'll be more than "Trudeau bad" but for now I'm not worried.

The government knocking on my door? I've not done real praxis in years and even then it's debatable. Not sure what they'd be doing here

I definitely don't show all I believe except when in good company, mostly because there's no point at all ranting about 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to someone who's gonna check out as soon as they hear 'dictatorship.' But I'm not afraid to lose a friend or start a big argument with a lot of other people when it's called for.

I've posted here before about recruiters in my area, and I've taken action against them by reaching out to people with info where possible. I self censor when I do, I never tell people the long story of how American imperialism is a system that arises out of international finance capital's need to split up the world and monopolize resources + labor, and I don't tell people how the military actions are one and the same as the soft power, covert ops utilized to project power across the world. 95% of people don't need to know all that stuff to understand why they shouldn't sign up to work at Raytheon, they just need a couple figures about how much harm wars in the Middle East have caused and pictures of villages in the countries their bombs land on.

More time is going and more I'm scared to get both

My only real worry is that I won’t be able to get security clearance that might be necessary for some lab jobs working for the government. The acceptable range of political views in my field ranges from “What Biden claimed to be in 2020” to “Let the streets run red with the blood of the bankers”

Badly

I do censor myself to a certain degree. I think we're better off organising and protesting and the like than we are intentionally crossing the law and ending up imprisoned over stupid shit that we say on the internet.

For example, governments around the world are cracking down on "Hamas" propaganda being shared. You aren't going to save a single Palestinian by posting shit that attracts the attention of the feds but you might just remove yourself from the political equation for a long time and if that happens then you will find yourself subject to a high degree of ongoing surveillance from that point onwards.

That's not what Palestine needs but it certainly an assist for your government's agenda.

"Extremist" posting is a form of adventurism imo and we all know the failures of adventurism.

On the other hand, there are ways to post using plausible deniability. Weasel wording like "Some people say..." or "I've heard that..." isn't going to protect you from scrutiny from three-letter agencies but if it goes before a judge you're going to have a much better chance at defending yourself against charges.

There's also ways of talking around censorship and communicating what needs to be said without saying it. A good party or organisation member knows how to say things without explicitly saying them. Discretion is important to exercise and it needs to be exercised even amongst comrades.

For examples of ways to talk around things, on one post here somewhere there was discussion of a particular pact-signer who had a "drink" named after them. On it I commented "Remember what they say: on the hood always looks good but between the wheels when shit gets real". Is that walking a line? Sure is. But I don't think it's sufficient to bring heat down on me.

Likewise, there was a post of an Israeli police thug violently detaining a Palestinian child on a mainstream social media site. Some Zionist complimented the pig for being "so handsome". I responded by saying "His beret doesn't suit him. He'd look better with a🔻on his head."

Anyone who reads it knows exactly what I'm saying. AI probably isn't going to be able to flag it as anything worthy of admin attention. I'm not actually calling for any sort of action or making any threat, just expressing an opinion with plausible deniability that I can hide behind. But I'm still counter-trolling and saying what I want to, just in a format that should fly under the radar and not bring any undue heat down upon me.

I guess it's worth always assuming that there's at least one fed within organising spaces and radical spaces. The Spy Cops scandal in the UK is evidence that we're not always going to be able to detect a true comrade from an infiltrator. If you talk in a way which is intentionally unspecific, an infiltrator is going to struggle to collect dirt on you, especially anything actionable, and they might just press you to clarify your meaning which is immediately going to arouse my suspicions.

It might happen someday, but it hasn't happened yet. I know a few people that the latter has happened to, and that are at risk of the former.

The FBI, DHS, and some local police departments have at various times showed up to my 9-5, but I don't think it had much to do with me.

I have found giving material context explained in a factual manner without appeals to emotion - as far as they're concerned, playing Devil's Advocate - can allow you to soften up reactionary beliefs, and over time get them to say the things you want to for you. It's not quite self-censorship, as I don't particularly hide my sympathies, but I do leave specific statements of support unsaid, and maintain plausible deniability as presenting all sides of the issue.