I'm sure they are, but are they more useful than what was before? Facebook & Co have some random element, it's not a one-way-communication device like classic media (TV, radio, newspapers) are/were.
The government has much less control over Facebook. You can't just go in and take it over like you could with a radio station, you can either use it and accept that others can as well, or you can block it in your country, but then you can't use it either.
False dichotomy. Lets not skip over irc, xmpp, and all sorts of free, variously encrypted communication platforms that Facebook muscled out.
WhatsApp is a hybrid, I suppose, but even there I think the share/forward feature is what drives the political usefulness, which is also why they're limiting that for some media, so you can't spread messages as easily (if it has been forwarded five times, you can only forward it individually, not to multiple contacts/chats, from what I understand).
The other side of the coin is that people being able to record and stream police in real time has exposed corruption in the justice system that the mainstream media has been ignoring for decades. The MSM use to never question whether police were being honest.
What Facebook and WhatsApp have enabled are convenient and useful for those in power. So while there may probably be some words here and there, we can’t expect a lot of change on the ground.
Disappointingly, the Indian Supreme Court is also lethargic and chooses to look at more trivial matters than give importance to things that could affect the freedom and political landscape for generations — examples are the Aadhaar petitions, cases against the electoral bonds and other matters not being heard for years. The court may actually find merit in holding this commenter in contempt for criticizing it, as if the judiciary is somehow sacred and beyond any criticism (anyone interested can search online for recent news on what the court is doing).
The effect of “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is seen in many corners!