You have privacy settings on almost all meta apps. They have tools to make it hard to download personal pictures without uploader consent. They respond to privacy concerns constantly.
Maybe that's why you are confused, you read or listen to their responses to privacy concerns, and you focus on the concerns rather than the responses.
What tools are you talking about. Facebook images are save as. Privacy rules can make your photo not appear on your profile but tag a friend and their friends get to see it. A few years ago facebook would show you the first picture of every private album if you went to a general url (photos?id=1234). Back in those days photo urls were sequential with hundreds of numbers skipped between photos but easy enough to take the first photo of a private album and sequentially get every photo.
If you put your photos on facebook at some point someone you didn't realize had access to your photos.
I also personally find it weird that so many people highlight the opposing nature of business and government as if it wasn’t enshrined in law.