One dimension to consider is that if liberty advocates leave a communications channel then there will be fewer voices there to speak up in favor of freedoms.
Group think never goes away completely. I sometimes think of group momentum as an acceleration that reaches a state of directional inertia. Since acceleration is necessary, some amount of group-think becomes a constant.
Only sovereign individuals, usually introverts, are willing to challenge group misconceptions. But since misconceptions are common within groups there is a bombardment of noise that would take enormous energy to combat, hence independents will pick their battles.