> If any of us openly criticised our employer on social media what would we expect? A round of applause?

We do not expect our employers to start files on us.

We do not expect them to do it when they are desperately short of cash and morale is low

We expect them to acknowledge there are problems (there are) and show some humility

You must be rather dense. Flatly disregard a provided source that counters your claim of "conspiracy theories" and then compare something like this to employers responding to employee criticisms. The two things are categorically different. The state spying on and punishing private citizens (even if they're government employees) for their criticisms of its policies is far ahead in danger from corporate employee monitoring bullshit.