Facebooks strategy was always running away from a trail of PR bodies via sheer sized based on "customers" (which should be called products, to be honest) which did and do not care. I mean sure, this PR debacle is not a bath in glory by any means. But I can not think of any PR campaign in response to the countless past scandals which made me think "Wow, nice catch". At least in Germany, their response to the accusation of manipulating elections was a billboard campaign advertising that in Facebook you have a settings page where you can click switches and thus be in full control of your privacy (:D).
Was there ever any effective response to Zuckerberg abusing his company data to crack journalists accounts? I can even remember an age old thing where Facebook made all your posts visible forever on your board or something which was just drowned in the ongoing unchallenged growth of Facebook after some time...
To clarify, I am glad that media is finally elevating from lizard memes but I reject the notion that this current affair is the first visible crack of rotten foundations one could have observed.