I find that the type of person who thinks FB did this intentionally (either to "erase data" or as a distraction) vastly overestimates the impact of whistleblowe

I find that the type of person who thinks FB did this intentionally (either to "erase data" or as a distraction) vastly overestimates the impact of whistleblowers. There have been ex-FB employees publicly accusing the company of enabling foreign political interference in the US, lynching mobs forming via WhatsApp, governments spreading misinformation, not to mention gross privacy abuses by its own employees. Nothing has fundamentally changed. Heck, nothing fundamentally changed after Wikileaks' Collateral Murder video (in fact, there have now been reports that the supposed retaliatory precision strike in Afghanistan actually killed an aid worker and his children and this too changes nothing) and nothing fundamentally changed after the Snowden leaks. Obama literally went on public television and admitted to torture and nothing fundamentally changed. As much as us nerds tend to think otherwise, information on its own changes nothing. Scandals like this are just another piece of outrage fuel to be consumed on social media and to be liked, shared and subscribed to. Without actually organizing and defining solutions rather than just the problems, nothing fundamentally changes. Otherwise the best you can hope for is the POTUS reading off a script while making a concerned face or Congress passing a toothless bill before things return to normal.