If you got a friend request from Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., on Facebook on Tuesday, it most likely was from one of the fake pages set up in his name just hours before he will sit down with other senators to question Mark Zuckerberg, the social media site's founder and CEO.
"First thing this morning, I got a number of messages from longtime friends who asked if I had a new family, because there was a new Facebook page for Chris T. Coons that had my face, but the family of Sen. Dan Sullivan and a whole lot of Russian friends," the Delaware Democrat told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports."
Earlier on Tuesday, Coons announced the fake pages on Twitter, taking Zuckerberg to task before his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Coons is a member, and the Commerce Committee.
Coons told Mitchell he planned to ask Zuckerberg if he really has control over Facebook and the role Cambridge Analytica paid in the 2016 election in which 87 million Americans has their personal information stripped out and shared out."
"The timing of this was probably not great for Mark and Facebook," Coons said. "It has subsequently been taken down. My experience is similar to many Americans in talking with my staff, my own family. I've discovered lots of people have had the experience of a fake profile page put up, and it sent out friend requests to a lot of their circle of friends."
He added to Mitchell the last time he checked, he was not a conservative Republican from Wyoming, like Sullivan.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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