None of the documentation or statements by US officials are consistent, and appear to include a bit of lying. So people are leaning towards him being at least partially correct in his accusations.
In short, they saw the picture and then began an extended interview where they made a bunch of false claims, and used made up reasons to deny him. Then later claimed they used more reasonable argument, which also doesn’t really hold water.
Not at all.
More attention means more people see it, so even if the percentage of complainers haven’t changed, there are more people who know.
On top of that, there was criticism before. There’s that streamer who was mocked relentlessly in comments and some defending him, there were articles about game developer lobby groups complaining that were posted here, etc.