I think there's something to that idea. To my mind, what's driving that is a kind of internet culture shock. A lot of spaces on the internet do not encourage thoughtful posts and responses, and the culture of communication tends towards negative emotional affect and hostility. A lot of people seem to be entirely unaware of how hostile, reactive and negative they're being, based on my admittedly anecdotal observations of new users joining spaces where the communication culture is radically different. They think it's normal, because the spaces they frequent are also hostile, reactive and negative, and when their negativity is pointed out to them, it sparks defensiveness because they've not been aware of it until now, or consider it 'normal'. The de-federation seems to have been interpreted by some as a rejection of their behaviour and has sparked that defensiveness as a result.