Mark Zuckerberg was warned that he risks being remembered as “a genius who created a digital monster”, by a senior member of the European Parliament, where the Facebook founder and chief executive was answering questions on a massive data leak affecting millions of users.

Guy Verhofstadt said that the only way for scandals surrounding the social media giant to subside would be for its services to be split apart.

“I really think we have a big problem here and it won’t be fixed by saying we will fix itself,” the parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator said. “Could you and would you cooperate with European Antitrust authorities?”

The Belgian MEP went on to suggest that Facebook’s dominance could be stifled by splitting it from Facebook messenger.

Down one road he would be remembered as a pioneer who created technology for good, “like Steve Jobs”, down the other his legacy would be that of “a genius who created a digital monster.”

German MEP Manfred Weber said it was “time to discuss breaking Facebook’s monopoly”.

Noting that the company already owned rival services like Instagram and Whatsapp, he added that it already had “too much power in one hand”.

It was up to Mr Zuckerberg to convince him that this measure is not necessary, he said.

Mr Zuckerberg replied that Facebook existed “in a very competitive space where people use a lot of different tools for communication”.

How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Show all 9 1 /9 How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Lock your profile down If you haven’t done this already, do it now. In Settings, hit the Privacy tab. From here, you can control who gets to see your future posts and friends list. Choose from Public, Friends, Only Me and Custom in the dropdown menu. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Limit old posts Annoyingly, changing this has no effect on who’s able to see your past Facebook posts. Instead, on the Privacy page, you have to click on Limit Past Posts, then select Limit Old Posts and finally hit Confirm on the pop-up. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Make yourself harder to find You can stop completely random people from adding you by selecting Friends of Friends from the dropdown menu in the Who can send you friend requests? section of the Privacy page. It’s also worth limiting who can find your Facebook profile with your number and email address. At the bottom of the page is the option to prevent search engines outside of Facebook from linking to your profile. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Control access to your Timeline You can limit who gets to post things on your Timeline and who gets to see posts on your Timeline too. In Settings, go to Timeline and Tagging and edit the sections you want to lock down. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Block people When you block someone, they won’t be able to see things you post on your Timeline, tag you, invite you to events or groups, start conversations with you or add you as a friend. To do it, go to Settings and Blocking. Annoyingly, you have to block people on Messenger separately. You can also add friends to your Restricted list here, which means they’ll still be friends with you but will only be able to see your public posts and things you share on a mutual friend's Timeline. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Review tags One of Facebook’s handiest privacy features is the ability to review posts you’re tagged in before they appear on your Timeline. They’ll still be visible on the News Feed while they’re fresh, but won’t be tied to your profile forever. In Timeline and Tagging, enable Timeline review controls. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Clean up your apps You can view a list of all of the apps you’ve connected to your Facebook account by going to Settings and Apps. The list might be longer than you expected it to be. It’s worth tidying this up to ensure things you no longer use lose access to your personal information. If you don’t want to log into websites and apps with your facebook account, scroll down and turn Platform off. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Change your ad preferences You can view a list of everything Facebook thinks you’re into and tinker with your ad preferences by going to Settings and Adverts. A lot more information is displayed on the desktop site than the app, so we’d recommend doing this on a computer. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Download your data Facebook lets you download all of the data it has on you, including the posts you’ve shared, your messages and photos, ads you’ve clicked on and even the IP addresses that are logged when you log in or out of the site. It’s a hell of a lot of information, which you should download to ensure you never over-share on the social network again.

He added: “From where I sit it feels like there are new competitors coming up every day … That feels like a competitive market.”

However, when he appeared before the US Congress in April, he was unable to name a rival service offering similar functionality as his social network.

Both hearings were seeking answers in the wake of the data scandal surrounding Facebook and the UK data firm Cambridge Analytica, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

Around 87 million Facebook users had their personal information improperly shared with the UK firm. The data was then used for the purpose of political profiling during the 2016 US presidential elections and the UK’s EU referendum that same year.

Facebook has more than 2.2 billion users worldwide and dwarfs any other online social network.

Beyond its core social network business, Facebook and its various subsidiaries now have direct influence over almost half of all internet traffic.

The call from the MEPs to break up Facebook’s monopoly comes as advocacy groups in the US urged the Federal Trade Commission to do the same thing.

The Freedom from Facebook campaign claims the company has too much power and has become a fundamental threat to democracy.

“Facebook unilaterally decides the news that billions of people around the world see every day,” the campaign’s website states. “It buys up or bankrupts potential competitors to protect its monopoly, killing innovation and choice. It tracks us almost everywhere we go on the web and, through our smartphones, even where we go in the real world.