And in the early days of the telephone, switchboard operators would listen in on conversations and cut off anyone they didn’t like. Then in civilized countries, they required phone companies to be common carriers and required police to get warrants if there was anything illegal suspected, to listen in on someone.
Similar thing with the postal service.
Yes, but Meta/Facebook is essentially positioning itself as a monopolistic utility by buying out all its smaller competitors and leveraging itself as one of the few players in the market. There are a lot of people, who if you want to talk to them or see what they have to say, you have to get a Facebook account. This includes politicians and small businesses.