Social‑blackmail as governance lever

Organized online actors use coordinated shame, mass reporting, and reputational threats to extract policy or personnel changes from institutions without formal authority. These campaigns function as an extralegal enforcement mechanism that leverages platform design (report systems, virality) to produce real‑world administrative outcomes. — If social blackmail becomes a routinized tool, private actors will be able to discipline public institutions and firms, shifting accountability from formal democratic channels to platform‑mediated coercion.