Where mobs may actually be useful

I'd noticed this as well:

Several of the people I follow, I followed originally simply because they stood up to mobs. The overlap between these people and the people who were the first to warn about the coronavirus is remarkable.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 25, 2020

While everyone else was going with the flow and thinking the coronavirus was just a Chinese problem, or that masks didn't matter, these people were saying "Uh, wait a minute, the data says..."

— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 25, 2020

So while I used to think mobs were a purely negative phenomenon, I now realize they have real value: they help you discover people who are independent-minded enough to see what others miss, and courageous enough to talk about what they see.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 25, 2020

It's a similar sort of personality required as with this. The same applies to whistleblowers.