Masks do damage by making dissent invisible and forcing dissenters to participate in and advance the lies of people whose goal is to make November a shitshow. Masks are the means by which they hope to continue their predatory ways.
Theodore Dalrymple: "When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control."
Also: http://mrdivis.yolasite.com/resources/Vaclav%20Havel's%20Power%20of%20the%20Powerless.pdf