The public basically believes that Facebook enabled to Putin to get Trump elected. So suddenly the issue of all that data we've been sharing has gone from "I've got nothing to hide" to "This got that guy I hate elected"
Whether or not that's accurate or informed is beside the point.
In the UK, the trigger issue is Brexit instead. The fake news long predates the internet - Boris Johnson built a career printing false articles about the EU in the Spectator, and the EU has long had a debunking site to deal with the UK press in general: https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/
Indeed although that's always been seen as OK because those are "our guys" manipulating public opinion vs. Putin being "the enemy" and getting Trump elected i.e. the tool (Facebook) is not under "our" / establishment control so Something Must be Done(TM)
This happens with many scandals. I'm reminded of LIBOR "rigging", which all the participants thought was entirely normal.
Speaking of financial services, the UK had a long run of "pensions mis-selling" scandals. https://pensionsorter.co.uk/pensions-scandals/ ; I put the personal information leaking into the same category. People were presented with options they did not fully understand the implications of and then induced into picking ones which turned out badly for them. This kind of thing is why so many people hate the financial services industry, and the data mining industry is going to end up the same way if they're not careful.