The behaviour described in this article implies a culture willing to look one way for users and another way for themselves. That’s pertinent less to users and more to lawyers and lawmakers.
I dislike FB as much as the next dev here, but surely it's a widely accepted (and beneficial) practice that employees have special privileges in the apps they build. Imagine using this argument to say that Facebook couldn't shut down a page/group/account.
Yes, it is technically the same abilities being used. The reaction comes because of how they're used: to indiscriminately delete old messages that may potentially be harmful to themselves while not offering the same options to its users.