[My standard intro and disclaimer]
I have a few Shadowrun fluff questions. I am running a 5th edition game with my girlfriend, best friend and his 20 year old son. We've really enjoyed ourselves so far, and all of us love the Shadowrun game world. Me being me however, there are some places where the story of Shadowrun just doesn't fit for me. I'm not talking about whether various events are ethical or legal. I realize it is fiction and I'm able to accept a fair amount with that in mind. That stated there are still some elements that I need help wrapping my head around.
I have seen a wide variety of Shadowrun world questions answered with, "It is bad for PR." For example,
Question: why don't megacorps harvest the organs of all the SINners in the various Barrens?
Answer: It is bad for PR.
What public are these public relations for? It is stated over and over again that the public has no self determination, so why care what the public thinks? The middle lifestyle and above metahumanity are all owned by the megacorps (directly or indirectly), and megacorp citizens won't question their own corp's actions and won't approve the actions of any other corp (regardless of what they do). Everyone below middle lifestyle are too busy trying to get their next meal to be concerned with whether a particular megacorp commits genocide or the like.
Another bizzare one are mentions of the UN. The UN was irrelevant in the 1980s, irrelevant now, and would be completely meaningless in a Shadowrun world. National governments are largely powerless to control the megas, and the UN has less power than that. Also, a diminished UCAS means the UN wouldn't be able to function anyway. In a world of completely wrecked countries, whose going to bankroll the UN and staff the UN peacekeeping forces without payment?
So what PR? If the answer offered is "Shadowrun is a dystopian dark black place", that's not an answer. I'm looking for something I've missed, which I'm sure there must be. I've done a fair amount of searching on this topic over the Internet but I'm keep finding the opposite of the answer I'm looking for: questions answered with "Megacorps don't care what anyone has to say about them."