You’re right. The average person is very much faced with the choice between nod along or potentially lose everything.

What happened to Nick Rikeita is fairly illustrative of your point. He talked about Keffals’ illegal behaviour on his YouTube channel, and found himself banned and 47 ethics complaints to his local Bar association as Keffals’ fans went after his law license and livelihood. The fact that YouTube was so quick to ban him - despite him being one of their highest earning live streamers - shows the kind of influence these individuals actually have.