Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has denied being caught out by his own website’s revamped privacy settings after more than 300 pictures on his page were briefly left open to the public.

The website’s new settings allow users to open their profile to friends, friends of friends, or everyone who uses the social networking site.

The changes sparked claims by privacy groups that Facebook was trying to ‘trick’ its users into sharing more personal information than they normally would.

Mark Zuckerberg, 25, cuddles a teddy bear on a trip to Lake Tahoe in this photo published on his Facebook profile

Following the change on December 9, Zuckerberg’s profile was opened up, granting thousands of people access to shots of him partying with his fraternity brothers, having an office Star Wars joust with his girlfriend and lounging around with a teddy bear.

When these were picked up by a number of other websites the Facebook entrepreneur denied he had been caught out.

In a posting on his revamped page he says: ‘For those wondering, I set most of my content on my personal Facebook page to be open so people could see it.

‘I set some of my content to be more private, but I didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear :)’

However, he then changed his privacy settings so the photos were only available to friends.