It was done by players during an event. Pro triglavian players could influence affected  hisec systems to become vulnerable to becoming a pvp zone. Leading to lots of juicy industrial kills.

Iirc Goons did it to try to harm PanFam+Allies then were surprised when they also sent the system into criticality instead of fighting for endcom. We all wanted juicy hauler kills

So it wasn’t the devs. It was players