I think there was a lot of miscommunication/misinformation shared around. Honestly, even now I'm not entirely sure what the whole thing entails. It's a change of policy that was already in effect, but you have to accept it now? What exactly is now being shared? Being in Europe, there was a lot of talk about how it didn't apply, and yet we still have the message?

I'd not be surprised if a lot of people got "FB (evil!) wants to read everything or they will close your account". Given how often I have received "share this message 10 times or WhatsApp will delete your account" from relatives, I think it also plays into this fear of losing access to your contacts. And it was all over the mainstream news, with the alternatives readily available (and their own shortcomings often not described).