> Are you genuinely serious or were you completely unaware of anti-communist government sanctioned blacklisting of academics suspected of being communist for political clout? Are you unaware of churches excommunicating Galileo for daring to scholarly research into the earth rotating around the sun? Are you unaware of our own Alan Turing, of the Turing award, literally castrated not for his research but because he was a known gay researcher? Are you unaware of why HBSUs exist(black scholars were segregated for being black, their research dismissed because of the race of the researcher)?

Every single one of those was NOT a mob.

The people in authority, using their authority to push their PoV, is very different to people with no authority forming a mob and demanding that the current authority silence other people from speaking their minds is a very different thing.

Whatever your view of the current authority is, it is infinitely better than mob-justice.