There is always a conflict, but only with access to the data you can uncover CA-style usage of the data.

Cambridge analytica had all data associated with real names, and it included all your likes and even some people's private messaging.

Yes, anonymized research data is very different.

It is basically impossible to have anonymized social media data that cannot be deanonymized which is also useful for anything but a very narrow kind of research.

They weren't real researchers. More like data brokers.

So who is going to decide who is a "real" researcher?

In this case, the court.

That's not at all true. This has nothing to do with the government. It's a court ruling on a law passed by parliament. In no way was the opinion/side of government at play here.