It's because they see that they will be held accountable if they don't start policing themselves.
They should have started doing this 4 years ago, then maybe we wouldn't have witnessed the first coup attempt in our history and 350k people wouldn't have died from a preventable illness.
In Jan-Feb you had tinfoil hat if you were "fearmongering" about Covid. One month later the roles were switched. Mask went from offical "meaningless" to "mandatory" in like no time. Social media is not to blame for the confusion. The institutions are. "Fact checking" in Jan would have been no human to human transmission and no risk of spread out of China. Having free speech was important back then.
I am an American expat who has been living in Thailand since Trump was elected.
I can forgive uncertainty about covid until March, despite my part of the world taking it very seriously. After that point I think America as a whole, and the Trump administration in particular really shit the bed. We have been wearing masks here on a mandatory basis since February, and have arguably handled covid better than any nation besides New Zealand.
They should have started doing this 4 years ago, then maybe we wouldn't have witnessed the first coup attempt in our history and 350k people wouldn't have died from a preventable illness.