Mark Zuckerberg is in the unusual position of complaining about his own privacy this morning, with the Facebook founder facing a little embarrassment over an instant messenger exchange that has surfaced from around six years ago.

Mark Zuckerberg was only 19 at the time of the alleged conversation.

The transcript of the alleged online conversation ends with Zuckerberg calling early Facebook users “dumb f**ks” and appears to show a pretty blasé attitude to privacy. If proven to be real, it should provide Facebook critics – which include former users, US Senate members, the European Union and over-the-top media commentators – with quite the stick to beat the former Harvard man with.

The full transcript is as follows:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don’t know why.

Zuck: They “trust me”

Zuck: Dumb F**ks.

A PC World report notes that Zuckerberg was, of course, only 19 at the time of the alleged conversation, and that the remarks are completely without context so it’s highly likely that the general attitude of the conversation was just him joking with a friend rather than cackling over the stupidity of users of the site, then known as ‘The Facebook’.

Facebook issued a statement in response to the alleged transcript, which is as follows:

“The privacy and security of our users’ information is of paramount importance to us. We’re not going to debate claims from anonymous sources or dated allegations that attempt to characterize Mark’s and Facebook’s views towards privacy.

“Everyone within the company understands our success is inextricably linked with people’s trust in the company and the service we provide. We are grateful people continue to place their trust in us. We strive to earn that trust by trying to be open and direct about the evolution of the service and sharing information on how the 400 million people on the service can use the available settings to control where their information appears.”

Facebook says nothing about whether or not the transcript is real, and simply calls the allegations “dated”.