Blumenthal: ‘The internet had a laugh,’ but Facebook understood
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Facebook security chief Antigone Davis knew exactly what he was talking about when he asked about fake Instagram accounts, known by the slang term “finstas.”
“She deflected the majority of serious questions posed to her,” Blumenthal said of Davis in a Friday interview with Hearst Connecticut Media.
During a Thursday Senate subcommittee meeting, Blumenthal asked Davis if she would commit to ending “finstas,” which he said was one of Facebook’s “products or services.”
Davis replied by explaining to Blumenthal that a “finsta” is a fake Instagram account set up by a user, not something created by Facebook, which owns the photo-sharing phone application Instagram.
“What ‘finsta’ refers to is young people setting up accounts where they may want to have more privacy,” she told Blumenthal. “You refer to it as privacy from their parents. In my interaction with teens, what I’ve found is that they sometimes like to have an account where they can interact just with a smaller group of friends.”
Clips of the exchange were watched millions of times on Twitter and TikTok, many posters and news sites suggesting that Blumenthal did not know what a “finsta” was.
Many memes and posts mocked Blumenthal, one Twitter user even created images of hats that read, “Will you commit to ending finsta?”
“The internet had a laugh, my kids had a laugh, I had a laugh,” Blumenthal said Friday. “But the serious point is that Facebook knows that parents have no idea whether their kids have these fake, secret accounts.”
Blumenthal, however, had explained at the start of the meeting exactly what “finsta” means.
“I want to talk about one major source of concern for parents,” the senator said in his opening remarks. “They are finstas. Finstas are fake Instagram accounts. Finstas are kids’ secret, second accounts. Finstas often are intended to avoid parents’ oversight.”
Davis was invited Thursday to address the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, of which Blumenthal is chairman.
During a Friday interview with Hearst Connecticut Media, Blumenthal said he would expect parents to be worried if their young children had fake, hidden social media accounts.
“Most parents would be concerned by their 13-yearold having a secret, double life online and would be deeply anguished and outraged by their young teenager, at the most vulnerable time of their lives, trapped in a secret life, threatening serious illness,” he said.
Blumenthal said his office set up a fake account, pretending to be a 13-yearold girl, expressing interest in weight loss. He said the account was inundated by predatory accounts that promote self-injury and eating disorders.
“It almost immediately attracted a myriad of eating disorder accounts, simply because the individual expressed interest in weight loss and eating disorders,” Blumenthal said. “We’re talking about kids who are 13 or 14 years old. Many of them very vulnerable to eating disorders or even suicide.”
According to Blumenthal, Facebook has a vested interest in fake accounts, and therefore has no interest in stopping the practice.
“In this instance, Facebook profits from kids having these secret fake accounts,” he said. “It’s part of a growth strategy. They can show more users and impress the markets and boost their stock price.”
The goal, Blumenthal said, is to encourage Facebook and other social media platforms to “stop exploiting children for profit and growth.”