Quell uproar? What uproar? Has the usage of instagram taken a dive? Or is this just the usual fake outrage pushed by the media that hates Facebook?
On the back of the findings from a couple of weeks ago that most human trafficking (measured by active sex trafficking cases) is happening over Facebook neo-forums, and Whatsapp chats, as well as Instagram [1] - the "uproar" you are questioning is the small little uptick in stories that are (IMO) correctly attributing the growth of facebook with the decline of Western values and democracy on the whole.
[1] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-sex-trafficking-online...
As far as I know the only social media company that didn't have any political leanings is Facebook. I think that's the only reason it is getting targeted repeatedly in the political circles and in the media. For me every rich tech/social media companies are same including Google, Apple & Facebook. At least Facebook didn't collude with other companies to suppress salaries of their employees. Open up every company and they would be caught doing same thing as Facebook.
Sorry, but that is ridiculous. Only a fraction of platforms allow uploading and sharing of media. Someone wise on HN said they would handle such stuff like toxic waste. Facebook (like others) considers the risks worthwhile. There will be no solution until that changes.
As for your second argument, look up "straw man'.
Also, the average Joe doesn't care about this. People won't stop using Instagram. All of these stories are nothing but masturbation for intellectuals. Thus this "uproar" is fabricated. It's not based on what people feel, but on what the media elites want them to feel.
The world was a lot smaller 75 years ago. But now it's a massive echo chamber. Resonance is causing crazy flare ups of niche parts of social discourse. You can consider SJW movements an example of that, as well as the far-right or incel movements. Large niche populations identifying as new self-identified groups. Social change, or self-reinforcing propaganda (social contagion) manifesting in novel ways after 25% of your life spent in front of a computer?
And because people are disconnected, the real world actions are implicitly given less weight because most actors have spent near a majority of their lives on a machine simulated interaction with someone else instead of with subtler cues that you would get in a true "village"
Not trying to wax poetic, I just really think things are getting weird because of the new hyper-dynamism.
(archive links: https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/... / https://archive.is/newest/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30...)