Extracts below from an interview on the Radio 4 programme 'Today' with Robert Hannigan who until last year ran GCHQ (the UK's "listening post")
Asked whether Facebook was a threat to democracy he replied "Potentially yes. I think if is, if it isn't controlled and regulated"
Facebook's ethics are those of a multinational, hard-headed advertising business, which is what they are really"
"One of the problems is that they have presented themselves as fluffy community builder" whereas actually they were "incredibly secretive companies refusing to co-operate with a whole range of governments including the US"
"The Company needs to be more open about who is funding their accounts, who is behind their accounts and to share that information on law enforcement with governments."
And from today's Times.
"{The company's} real problem is a lack of transparency. The truth is we don't really know who is behind Facebook accounts, who is putting into them, so we're getting potentially mass propaganda and targeted propaganda without any understanding of where it is coming from" He added that Facebook would "....squeeze whatever profit they can out of the data they are using" and that incentives to drive profit were likely to be "higher than incentives to protect privacy".
My personal view, for what it is worth, is that during the next couple of years Facebook will be gradually "legislated" out of existence.