> we all knew exactly how bad it could get.

You were very smart then, congratulations.

Back in 2006 there was no mention anywhere of "fake news", "bias bubbles" and such because there was almost no news sharing in Facebook, and your feed was not curated to only show you what you were most likely to like. There was no political advertising on Facebook for a long time, and even no ads at all until like 2007 or 2008.

User tracking was almost non existent as well until 2010 or so.

So sure, there was already some concern about privacy back then, it was mostly about people voluntarily over-sharing thins they shouldn't, not about being tracked and manipulated against your wish.