I think they are trying to spin it as a privacy-protecting move. This gains them two things: 1. They save face a little by not publicly confessing it was a fai

I think they are trying to spin it as a privacy-protecting move. This gains them two things: 1. They save face a little by not publicly confessing it was a failure. 2. Big tech (Facebook, Google, etc.) is facing privacy-related criticism right now. They can say, hey, this is yet one more step we're taking to improve the situation for everyone. And they might even be partially right about both. Maybe they would have shut it down eventually but privacy challenges caused them to do it sooner than they otherwise would have.