It also announced that it would release new products, including a special version of Facebook for dating and a portable virtual reality headset that will be the first of its kind.

But the F8 conference – at which the new products were launched – was overshadowed by continuing controversies at the company. They were addressed by Mr Zuckerberg on stage, but he offered no apology and little explanation of recent events.

Not only did the conference come amid a growing data abuse scandal at Facebook, it also came less than a day after it emerged that WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum would leave the company.

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.

Reports had suggested that Mr Koum had left as the result of a dispute with Facebook management over how much of users' data it could harvest. But Mr Zuckerberg gave no indication of any fallout and thanked Mr Koum for working with him, referring to him as "a tireless advocate for privacy and encryption".

Mr Zuckerberg did also reference the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but only in passing. He offered no apology for its part in the data abuse scandal, referring only to an "intense week".

He did reiterate a series of commitments apparently intended to quell public anger about the dangers of Facebook. They included a commitment to securing data and new investments to ensure that the site didn't damage security or elections.

Mr Zuckerberg said in advance of the event that the challenge of the conference would be ensuring that the company could still use it to introduce new products, even while apologising for the damage that its old ones have done. "That's going to be what this whole conference is about," he told Wired.

Once the discussion of recent events was out of the way, the new product launches were plentiful.

The company revealed that it will add group video chat options to WhatsApp, for instance, allowing people to call numerous people at once. And it will continue its focus on allowing people to chat with businesses, too.

It also showed off a new version of Facebook Messenger, with a vastly slimmed down interface. It will now open to show a list of people that users could chat with – and add new options, including a dark mode.

Instagram also received new updates, including a group video chat feature that allows people to virtually meet up with friends and scroll through their timeline at the same time. The new feature will bring up a live video feed of a person or group of people, so that users can scroll through Instagram together, even if they are physically apart.

(That part of the conference also saw a brief cameo from Jiffpom, a small dog that has almost 9 million followers and which Instagram said is the most famous pet on its platform.)

Facebook itself got a major update intended to take on dating apps like Tinder. The new dating platform – which will live in the main Facebook app but will be separate from it – sent shares in rival companies spiralling.

And it introduced a new Oculus Go headset, too. Even that headset wil include its own video chat, coming with a new version of Oculus Rooms, which allows people to speak and interact together in a virtual space.

The Oculus Go was first announced in October and is the first high-end standalone virtual reality headset of its kind, with the display and computing power built directly into the headset.

Until now, virtual reality systems have required a wired connection to a PC or games console, or in the case of some more budget wireless devices use a smartphone slotted into the device to act as the screen.

The technology giant confirmed the launch of the much-anticipated headset at Facebook's annual developer conference, F8.

The £199 device includes a built-in LCD screen and integrated speakers on either side of the headset, and also comes with a wireless controller to help users navigate through the headset's interface.