Do they? I only seem to see the latter online when people are being facetious about it. Do you see examples of people saying they were triggered and shouldn't have been and they are not referencing panic attacks?
I'm in close contact with a lot of social justice groups, specifically ones based out of UC Berkeley. It's not super widespread, but there are absolutely individuals who abuse the concept of triggers as a way to give themselves pretext to be cruel to others, to control conversations, or just as something to get righteously indignified about.
This is an issue with the individuals involved and not triggers per se, but just as with other social technologies it's definitely possible to abuse triggers.
That said, I do hear some vitriolic defenses of them as well.
Moral of the story: Don't trust anything you read on the internet, I guess.