![](https://www.skeptic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Salem-Witch-Trials-depicted-by-Joseph-Baker-1892-2x-510x332.jpg)
Often someone who makes a public comment out of compliance with progressive opinion is set upon by online vigilantes, attacked personally, repents, and promises to do better next time. Using two cases as touchstones, Stewart Justman draws an analogy between the extraction of such an apology and the extraction of a false confession to a crime of violence, the critical point being that in both instances the pressured party may well begin to believe the accusations against him or her.