[bastawhiz]

Getting you to engage is getting you to provide information you wouldn't have provided unprompted. By delivering value, they're getting you to reveal more about yourself.

"Table stakes" and "a tool for surveillance" are not at all mutually exclusive. Which is all the more reason to be concerned about Mudge's suggestions that foreign bad actors were employed at Twitter. Make no mistake: social media is a tool that can be used for malicious purposes.