Facebook users don’t have any privacy on the site, company’s lawyer says

A lawyer on the payroll of social media giants Facebook has revealed that users don’t really have any privacy on the site, in comments coming a days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a shareholder meeting that he wants to build a “privacy-focused social platform”.

At a hearing in a class-action lawsuit over Cambridge Analytica’s accessing of Facebook user data, company attorney Orin Snyder argued that there is “no expectation of privacy” on Facebook (or social media in general), according to Law360.

“There is no invasion of privacy at all, because there is no privacy,” Snyder said while trying to convince U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria toss out the lawsuit. Snyder argued that users had given consent to share their data with third parties.

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“You have to closely guard something to have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” he said.

Snyder’s argument appeared to fly in the face of Zuckerberg’s speech at Thursday’s Facebook shareholder meeting, where the CEO stressed his commitment to protecting users’ private data.

“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,” Zuckerberg told shareholders.

He added that Facebook is largely public — like a “digital town square” — but that privacy would be a major thrust of the company’s product strategy for years to come. Speaking before a judge on Wednesday, Snyder said that sharing something with a large crowd of people (like your Facebook followers) forfeits your right to privacy.

Facebook has dealt with multiple scandals over its handling of user data during the past year, including giving companies the ability to see viewers’ private messages.

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