This may have just been in the communities I visit but in the after-math there was a lot of people who expressed regret at their extreme reaction, which makes m

This may have just been in the communities I visit but in the after-math there was a lot of people who expressed regret at their extreme reaction, which makes me think that the "spiral of silence"¹ may have also played its part. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence