Exactly who knows!?
But in all seriousness, considering how large the company seems to be with outsourcing and multiple internal levels of support, it sounds like a juicy target both for ransomware and industrial espionage.
I like the malicious compliance but I find that to be a bad way to do a poll. Better would have been one comment with the text "Upvote if you want John Oliver pics, downvote if you want it to go back to normal".
The way they did it if one group only upvote their alternative and the other also downvotes the opponent then the result isn't representative. Or at least could be claimed not to be.
[REPOST] Our head of IT needed a new password, and an explanation of due process
[REPOST]...
Reddit: open /r/pics or else. Mods: OK but you didn't say how (old.reddit.com)
I honestly don't know if this is allowed here but I thought this is malicious compliance at its finest....