There's been a steady breakdown of trust and goodwill between SO Employee's and moderators/power users over the last year. Part of why this blew up so fast is probably that there's no good will left between the two groups anymore; and people immediately assumed the worst and reacted in anger.

This is a decent (long) summary of what's been happening.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/331513/lets-take-a-...