McNamee said  Zuckerberg  does not acknowledge the website’s threat to national security, adding “It’s about power”.

He said he warned Mark Zuckerberg of the immense problems that Facebook’s business model could unleash, but the company essentially believes that it is sovereign, the equivalent of another nation.

“It has nearly twice as many monthly active users as there are people in China. And so Mark Zuckerberg very much has the view that no one can tell him what to do. Facebook’s research says that 64 percent of the time that a person joins an extremist network on Facebook; it is because Facebook has recommended that they do so.”

He said it was a mistake to think it was about money, although a nice bank balance is a factor.

“I think it’s about power. I think Mark Zuckerberg has a vision that connecting all the people in the world on one network — his network — is the best thing any human being can do. And in his notion it has to do with efficiency, it has to do with scale, it has to do with imposing his vision on it.”

McNamee said that kind of power is intoxicating and Facebook was living in a world which is a little like Apple.

“They lived in a  bubble and believed their press and their point of view about what was going on. And I think they’re at this point now where they are just disconnected. There’s no sensitivity, no understanding that they might have a responsibility to society”, McNamee said.

Facebook wants to hide behind the first amendment. They want to say this is about freedom of speech. But amplification is not freedom of speech. Amplification is a business choice for profit, he said.