None of these nutcases offer true help to society (note: neither do the extreme leftists, just so we're clear that I'm not team red or team blue), and it does no good that our corporations are actively picking a side.
- They never believed in progressive causes, and were just siding with what they believed was the social majority. (and so when they perceive the social majority has changed, they immediately follow and would follow _any_ social majority.)
- They don't agree with the current anti-progressive social movement (ie, they still hold their old beliefs) but none of them have any backbone whatsoever, and are getting in line with virtually no resistance or fight.
- All the tech company CEOs just happened to be radicalized at the exact same time.
I'm sure that #1 is the most reasonable answer, although perhaps there's a dash of #3 in there. In any case, you'd have to question whether a party-in-power (from a social movement perspective) wouldn't just encourage this trend when _they_ were the ones winning.
The principles of propaganda are well established. Edward Bernays clearly described how to plant ideas and influence public opinion a hundred years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)). The only thing that has changed is the speed and intensity of communication.
They always had different standards in different countries and in different circumstances.
FB has been showing lots of dog-whistle racism, occasionally even outright overt racism for many years. The one occasion on which reported a blatantly racist comment they said it was not against "community standards".
They want money, and they want engagement, and they want governments to remove competition.