I don't really disagree with any of that. It's just hard to say that collective action can be used for evil as well as good so it should be restricted. I'm not sure how you even do that in a non-authoritarian way. But it can certainly be a problem. See e.g. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove... (assuming facts are as presented)
The reality is that it's entirely rational for companies to basically fire first and ask questions later.
> It's just hard to say that collective action can be used for evil as well as good so it should be restricted.
We're not talking about "collective action" in general, we're talking about mobbing specifically. Mobbing (like other forms of vigilantism) is never good. Enforcement is a different matter--I think there are couple of ways to approach it that would have a huge difference and wouldn't be authoritarian at all:
1. Make it harder for employers to terminate employees on the basis of mob action. In other threads, others have talked about various "cooldown policies"--employers aren't allowed to fire an employee on the spot for ideological offenses, but must wait 90 days to see if it's still a problem. Another candidate solution would be making it employers liable in some way for terminating an employee in response to a mob or perhaps for ideological offenses altogether (at least not those that create a hostile workplace environment for some sensible definition of the term).
2. I would also look into ways to regulate social media. It's clear at this point that social media is detrimental to our society in many ways ranging from addiction to toxicity to inciting mob violence. Social media companies are allowed to curate sensational and "fake news" content at their convenience, but they claim to be "dumb pipes" when held to account. Make them choose whether they are curators or dumb pipes and if they choose to be curators, hold them accountable when they curate content that threatens or incites violence, etc.
I'm sure there are details to work out with both of those proposals--I'm not going to completely solve the problem in an HN post, but I'm very confident that both of these proposals could be fleshed out into effective policies which together could marginalize the problem. There is a third option which is to simply enforce the laws we already have--when individuals threaten or incite violence on social media, we should prosecute them regularly (these cases are rarely prosecuted today). I don't think this option is as effective (it wouldn't prevent people from demanding a person be terminated) and it's certainly more costly.
The reality is that it's entirely rational for companies to basically fire first and ask questions later.