Who are you trying to convince? I certainly don't trust "the media" (or as I typically call them "the war media") as anyone on HN who follows my copious commenting can tell you. At this point, I trust Facebook less than the newspapers, just based on my (very) occasional use and actually listening to what Facebook themselves say.

All that is beside the point. The point is that if as 'sonnyblarney indicated there a custom negotiation for every new organization that gets to peak behind the curtain, then the process is not standardized. Normal online firms have TOS and APIs, and it's possible to characterize what user data they release. For Facebook, apparently that characterization is not possible.