I don't think it's anything new really. We had groups like Nambla in the 90's after all.

Way I see it is they use the generally tolerant attitudes and necessity of free conversation in academic circles as a "safe space" environment to assemble as larger society won't tolerate their shit for a second. That's a double edged sword though really. The academic tolerance towards free speech is what allows us to have discussions like this and learn about such motives in the first place, if you try to mention this in a more mixed environment of "normies" they'll just think it very odd that you are discussing pedophilia at all and will assume you are the pedophile, likely at the insinuations of the actual pedophile in the group attempting to deflect.

I think these deflection tactics work in academia for a time as people make attacks of people being phobic or whatever, they've got their useful idiots to go on the attack for them, but I think it's cyclical. They go on unopposed for a time until they achieve some kind of mainstream awareness which they are aiming for, once that happens larger society comes around to realizing it and the tactics of attacking those who are suspicious and making wild claims of homophobia or whatever doesn't work anymore because the larger population won't respond well to those, which results in a large backlash and correction which forces them to throw their stupider and less discreet pedophiles under the bus and go back into the shadows and regroup. Larger society as a whole goes on a pedophilia crusade for awhile but like most moral panics it begins to turn into a witch hunt and you get shit like the satanic panic finding child molesters where there are none and stuff like parents getting caught up by overzealous agents for doing things like taking pictures of their baby taking a bath. Society realizes there's a witch hunt and rolls it back and remains pretty anathemic of the accusations again and the cycle repeats.