That's because, so far, they've managed to deflect, deny, and discredit research and critics pointing out exactly how social media uses things like variable rewards in the same way as slot machines use them to keep gamblers pulling the lever. They do this using tactics developed by the tobacco companies to fight findings that smoking causes cancer and other harms and refined by the fossil fuel industry to prevent action on global warming.
I agree with you but a lot of the analogies and metaphors here are insufficiently subtle.
FB in some sense, but not entirely, is a form of speech, no better or worse than Grand Theft Auto or the National Enquirer. That's how I thought of it ten years ago.
Now that it is in our pockets nearly cradle to grave; a monopoly; and dependent on minutes of engagement rather than subscriptions -- it is a different animal altogether.
