Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) had a moment of questionable tech aptitude in a hearing held to question Facebook officials on Thursday.

Facebook’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, beamed into the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security for a hearing on revelations that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has a negative psychological impact on young people. The hearing also focused on reporting that the company knew about that impact.

Blumenthal serves as chairman of the subcommittee, and at one point in the hearing, he asked Davis with a straight face: “Will you commit to ending finsta?”

The problem: Finsta isn’t a product Facebook and Instagram actually provides.

As Merriam-Webster notes, “Finsta” is a shorthand for Finstagram, or “fake Instagram.” Numerous thinkpieces have been written in the past explaining why people make finstas — for example, some use finstas to post more liberally about their personal life to a more exclusive audience of friends.

Davis informed Blumenthal “we don’t actually do finsta,” and she proceeded to explain the term.

“But finsta is one of your products or services,” Blumenthal countered. Davis enlightened him of the term again, so the senator once again asked “will you end that type of account?”

Davis responded to that by saying Facebook allows finstas options that provide users greater levels of privacy.

Watch above, via Eric Morrow.

The post WATCH: Sen. Blumenthal Demands Facebook Put an End to Finstas, Gets Informed That’s Not a Company Service first appeared on Mediaite.

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