It's a very effective meme. Like most such memes, it worms itself inside, and the vehicle doesn't consciously know of its presence. These people aren't thinking "I'll do this. It'll get me votes". It is unconscious mimetic memetics, if you will :)

Some of these memes become elevated into conscious actions. For instance, people cynically exploit "Linux can't do X" to get help for X. But some memes are unconscious and I think "I'll be downvoted for this" or "Get out of here with your facts and reason" or "Source?" are definitely examples of these.

Personally, I think many of the privacy and security comments are also memes that propagate through mimicry of success, but that's its own thing.