I struggle with this myself a lot.
Note: I summarized what Brant Hansen actually said. Here's what he actually said, unsummarized, on his 2 April 2015 podcast:
Man, people are mad online about stuff. There’s politics, and there’s all sorts of issues. I see postings from people all the time that I don’t agree with.You can find the podcast at http://branthansen.comWhat I have found, though: I can tell myself that, “Oh, I want to correct this person. That’s all I’m doing, just correcting this person.”
It doesn’t work if I do it on their page. It doesn’t work if I do it in public. If I really want to correct the person, I could send them a private message, a Facebook message or whatever, an email, and say “Hey, here’s what I’ve heard about this. I’m curious what you think. I love you either way.”
That’s far more effective, if it’s concern about that person.
…
If you feel like “I need to take a public stand for truth here. My opinion needs to be in public,” I understand that, too. But man, when you follow up with a comment , if you want to box somebody in and make them look “How stupid you are” and insult somebody, if you think that’ll change somebody’s mind, I will tell you, it NEVER does, EVER.
It’ll just occupy you the rest of the day and you’ll feel like you’re in conflict, and for what?
