Open Letters as Retaliation Shields

When administrations punish critics, stakeholders with business before agencies route complaints through independent voices and collective open letters to diffuse risk. Anonymous originators seek large crowds of signatories—especially from politically salient regions—to make reprisals harder and signal broad backing. This shifts advocacy from direct lobbying to reputationally insulated channels. — If fear of retaliation reshapes who can speak and how, policy feedback loops and scientific governance will increasingly run through mediated, anonymous, or crowd-signed vehicles rather than open institutional critique.