I have attended a few PyCon, and fleetingly visited/watched several similar conferences. There seems to be enough instances where presenters have pressed companies like FAGMA to correct certain implementations in their product stack. Even CPP conference has on several times called out MS VC++ on their compiler peculiarities in the distant past. Whitehat security conferences are usually full blown on the offensive in showing how compromised some platforms could be. I am not discounting your concern, but unless evidence exists, this could be more hearsay or anecdotal.
(I dont work for any of these companies and on several occasions declined to interview. Full disclosure: no relationship).
It's hard to provide evidence for this type of thing, but it's very much a concern to be believed. Companies giving you a corporate sponsorship will definitely influence your decision making. Always. Choices are made, often literally behind the curtain, to appease them. Seeing a few public examples of push back doesn't eliminate this fact.
(Full disclosure: I am an indie conference maker [0], so I'm biased against corporate sponsors.)
> Whitehat security conferences are usually full blown on the offensive in showing how compromised some platforms could be.
Until recently it was common for sponsor companies to threaten conferences to pull talks that demonstrated security flaws in their products. They’ve realized that the PR hit from this usually outweighs any “benefits” now but it used to be a whole thing.
I'm honestly not sure that a conference stage is typically the most appropriate place to go after companies for specific issues. I can think of one of two examples where (to me) it was called for. But I certainly wouldn't want it to be the norm.
ADDED: What I mean by this is that a conference filled with talks where people are badmouthing competitors or others sounds pretty unpleasant.
(I dont work for any of these companies and on several occasions declined to interview. Full disclosure: no relationship).