This doesn't really make me feel a lot better. I'm glad they backtracked, but doing so quietly once they got caught does not inspire much faith in their passion to make technology that makes the world a better place.

Perhaps the "troublemakers" were successfully identified. No need to continue with this extremely unpopular (among users) thing.

Even if not all of them could be identified, the ones who were will certainly cooperate with authorities.

Any explanation of why this happened?

As most people not on a conspiracy kick guessed: a bug.