Campus mobs weaponize online harassment

Student networks and social media can rapidly convert disagreement into sustained campaigns of intimidation — including threats of suicide, calls for job destruction, and internal editorial pressure — that functionally censor heterodox views on campus. Those campaigns often operate outside formal university processes and can force resignations, retractions, or self‑censorship even when editorial procedures were followed. — If true, this shifts the free‑speech debate from formal policy (speech codes, tenure) to the social power of ephemeral online student mobs, demanding different remedies (procedural protections for student journalists, sanctions for targeted harassment).