> What changed?
It's in the zeitgeist. The Cambridge Analytica scandal gave the public a tangible threat in Facebook's data promiscuity. At that point, the entire system is incentivized to dig deeper. Whistleblowers who previously wouldn't have thought of leaking start getting inquiries; legal teams ask for contracts to be re-assessed; Congressional staffers make calls; NGOs mobilize to start court cases, et cetera.
Similar to what happened post-Snowden in the E2E space.