It’s an interesting thought. I wonder how wide each person’s individual ‘chilling effect’ extends.
It would be like knowing someone is in the Gestapo or the KGB. You wouldn’t just not speak to that individual truthfully, you wouldn’t speak truthfully to their family, their friends, colleagues…. Or even the friends, family and colleagues of their friends family and colleagues. The silencing fear would ripple out much further and wider than could possibly be known by them.
Ordinary people know there are “consequences” if our true opinions get back to these kinds of people - losing jobs and livelihood, ritual shaming and humiliation and forced confessions, ostracism and never being able to return to our profession, police action, extortion, threats of violence, even prison.
These people must be constantly met with smiles and what seems to be approval. How could they ever know what anyone truly thinks and believes?