If they're like me it's more a long-term risk of having all your social media accounts tied together into some creepy profile. By somebody buying ISP DNS data (already happens), marketing data (same), or ML writing analysis.

Until there's privacy laws preventing such things it's better to be anonymous

The issue is not cancel culture on HN itself, but out in the real world, where saying anything that can be interpreted as "wrong" under your real name can have real consequences.

I've seen junior programmers advised on Twitter by seniors to take care what (and whose) tweets they "heart", or those tweets could weigh heavily against them at future job interviews.

Don't see why that wouldn't hold here on HN as well.

Expressing political opinions these days is a dangerous game. And more and more things are becoming politicized. Remember Coinbase? They were crucified for declaring that they just want to work.

Really? Who is doing this kind of research into candidates? When I interview people I don't have time to check out their entire social media history. There are also plenty of people that complain that their interviewers don't take the time to check out relevant things like github so I don't think I'm alone in this. If your interviewer has the time to waste checking out your entire Twitter feed then that sounds like a possible sign of a dysfunctional workplace.

There's automated platforms to find candidates social media profiles. It's pretty standard these days.

Finding social media profiles is easy. Reading the content takes time. I'd guess places that go through your social media are probably just doing quick searches for terms like the company name or the n word. I also doubt its standard practice at most companies I'd be interested in working for to go through social media for roles that aren't public facing.