We've been here before. Back in the 1950s, when TV commercials appeared, the ad industry was portrayed as a villain. "Selling out to Madison Avenue" was considered a despicable act for a writer. There were books on the evils of ads - "The Hidden Persuaders" (Packard, 1957). The US Congress held hearings on the evils of television. TV did change the world. For the first time ever, ordinary people had more free entertainment coming in than they could consume. That had never happened before in all of history.
Facebook is a new technology for delivering ads. The problems come from being ad-supported, not the nature of a social network. If Facebook were a paid service without ads, most of the intrusiveness would go away.
What we need to regulate is advertising, not networking.