Facebook is still struggling with the concept of privacy (Isopix/REX)

A lawyer for Facebook has told a judge in the US that social media users ‘have no expectation of privacy’.

The remark is rather at odds with statements that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made this week.

‘One of the big themes that we’re going to be pushing on for the next 5 to 10 years is building out this vision of a privacy-focused social platform,’ the billionaire told investors on Thursday.

But Orin Snyder, an attorney for the company, told U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria that ‘there is no invasion of privacy at all, because there is no privacy,’




He was speaking at a hearing for a class action lawsuit against Facebook in which users have claimed their data was misused through the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Snyder explained that the lawsuit should be thrown out because the users didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

‘You have to closely guard something to have a reasonable expectation of privacy,’ he said, according to Law360.

Mark Zuckerberg delivers his keynote speech at the F8 2019 conference. Privacy was kind of a big part of it (Image: Facebook)

He went on to say that Facebook is like a ‘digital town square’ and sharing anything with that public space forfeits your right to privacy. He also stated that the company would in fact be building out privacy strategy in the future.

Facebook is currently struggling with a tonne of pressure to somehow incorporate privacy into its business model – which basically thrives on knowing as much data about its users as possible.

Despite the recent scandals, Facebook is still going strong.

Facebook is continuing to do well (Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

For the three months ending on December 31 2018, Facebook’s revenue was £12.8 billion – a 30% increase on the £9.8 billion it made in the same period in 2017. Profits were also up 61% to £5.1 billion.

The company continues to see growth through the subsidiaries of WhatsApp and Instagram.