When Cuties originally aired, I showed my Boomer Lib mom a few videos about the backlash (which contained some distressing clips from the show itself) and encouraged her to write to Netflix and cancel (or at least threaten to) her sub to them because of it. She was terrified of backlash from them, and invented some kind of legal trouble she could fall into from accusing them of child abuse or whatever.

It is 1 million percent a trained behavior. She simply could not fathom rocking the boat, incurring a punishment, and being defiant about it, even in the face of something she should have taken very seriously and personally.