I ventured into this a while ago. After thinking about it, I decided that if Google or the Government decided they wanted to know who I was, they'd find me one

I ventured into this a while ago. After thinking about it, I decided that if Google or the Government decided they wanted to know who I was, they'd find me one way or another. I'd go insane trying to stop them. But they weren't really my threat model anyway - I just wanted to write political ideas without strangers tying their perceptions of those ideas to my real self. I wasn't planning to write anything that could be perceived as illegal or close (eg, no inciting hate/violence/treason). So I thought of a pen name, created a Gmail for it, then a Twitter with that, and a Medium account with that. I blogged on Medium. I wasn't too worried about pissing off a rogue Medium/Twitter employee enough for them to try to doxx me, though it was the only thing to give me pause - and honestly, a run-of-the-mill VPN I only and always use for that probably would have been enough. Ultimately, if an internet mob was going to get me, it'd be because of my writing style or facts of my life I allude to in my posts. But even there, plausible deniability is likely good enough unless I really piss a lot of people off and drop a lot of personally identifying hints - which would be my own damn fault.