I think your assumption is reasonable (although yes yes we're all speculating). A public campaign certainly could have been the tipping factor - and as I argued elsewhere in another post, a public campaign without the context (satire/parody) attached to it might even have survived an initial court hearing. From a pure libel/slander POV most of what I've been able to see that was publicly posted would not make up a viable claim
Re: Please don't eat the kittens