College students are a traditional target of oppressive or authoritarian regimes. Teaching young adults to view the world through different lenses and systems is an important part of most college programs, as is a significant amount of self-discovery, and both lend themselves very well to activism, especially since young adults are rarely so jaded as to feel like they "can't do anything about it"

what activists are running sshd?

Many software freedom and tech privacy activists.

Having wrote an article on XZ, I was half expecting to have this text popup, especially as I'm fairly certain i was targeted by a misinformation campaign already

How often is that being done in the modern age of social media? I don't think "activists" are very important or dangerous to governments anywhere.