A US Senator appeared to misunderstood the concept of ‘Finsta’ and it is pretty hilarious.
Speaking during a Senate hearing about how Facebook impacts teenagers’ mental health, senator Richard Blumenthal pressed the company’s global head of safety Antigone Davis on whether they had plans to “end” these types of account, but revealed he really didn’t quite know much about the term.
“Will you commit to ending Finsta?” he said
“We don’t actually do Finsta,” Davis replied. “What Finsta refers to is young people setting up accounts where they may want to have more privacy. You refer to it as privacy from their parents.
“In my interactions from 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.”
But Blumenthal clearly didn’t grasp the concept. “Finsta is one of your products or services we’re not talking about Google or Apple it’s Facebook, correct?” he said.
Kind of.
“Finsta is slang for a type of account,” Davis said.
“Will you end that type of account?” Blumenthal repeated.
“I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re asking,” Davis replied.
Reacting to the clip, people found it hilarious:
Elsewhere in the hearing, Blumenthal accurately described Finsta as secret second accounts that teens use to evade parental scrutiny. However, he seemed to think that these were actual features used by the company rather than a trend started by young people as a joke.
The hearing examined how Instagram affects mental health following the publication of a series of leaked internal documents by the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the could negatively impact body image and self-esteem.
“Children and teens face immense peer pressure and social expectations to broadcast their lives online,” the subcommittee said in a statement announcing the hearing, adding that it would specifically be exploring the Facebook research exposed by the Journal report and “policy considerations to safeguard kids online”.
Looks like Blumenthal could have done a bit more research.