Problem is, there isn't any oversight that any person outside of those companies could look at to ensure that it isn't attempting to influence. We know about various studies they've done at Facebook but there is no way, beyond trust, to know if they or any inner groups are attempting to do any influence. Even an accidental bug could influence a startling amount of people and no one would ever know.
When a single platform has the eyes and attention of a third of the world's population each day, even the smallest things, purposeful or not, could cause a ripple of change.
I would argue Coke, Samsung, Frito-Lay, etc are different. They can't make instant changes or do AB testing on a scale that Facebook can. Facebook could give a single page over to an algorithm that runs millions of experiments a day to learn how best to influence a person in a certain way, iterate on that and continue. A single engineer, with their scale and data, could set this up given the proper permissions.
When a single platform has the eyes and attention of a third of the world's population each day, even the smallest things, purposeful or not, could cause a ripple of change.
I would argue Coke, Samsung, Frito-Lay, etc are different. They can't make instant changes or do AB testing on a scale that Facebook can. Facebook could give a single page over to an algorithm that runs millions of experiments a day to learn how best to influence a person in a certain way, iterate on that and continue. A single engineer, with their scale and data, could set this up given the proper permissions.