Facebook Forces Admins of Popular Pages To Share Location Info

Facebook is rolling out a new requirement to people who manage pages with a large following in the Usa: They'll soon take to ostend their locations.

The new authentication requirement is designed to help the company root out scammers and Russian agents from abusing Facebook pages to influence the public. "Our goal is to prevent organizations and individuals from creating accounts that mislead people about who they are or what they're doing," the visitor said in a mail on Friday.

The new requirement forces the Facebook page admins to turn on location tracking. They'll besides take secure their accounts with two-factor authentication, which adds an actress layer of login protection to prevent hacking. "If a Page manager authorizes and then turns off location, they might exist required to turn location services on again to post to the Folio," a Facebook spokeswoman told PCMag.

The visitor isn't elaborating on what constitutes a page with a large following, but for practiced reason. "We aren't sharing verbal numbers (of the followers needed) as bad actors may use it to game the organization," the spokeswoman added.

Facebook Page Verification

The tech behemothic originally appear the new authentication measure dorsum in Apr among ongoing concerns that strange governments will try to exploit Facebook to interfere in upcoming US elections. In February, federal investigators indicted 13 Russian nationals for conspiring to buy political ads on social media to influence the American public during the 2022 presidential race. In response, Facebook has been requiring political ad buyers to start verify their identities and locations with the company.

Facebook said the new authentication process for pages, which starts rolling out today, "should only take a few minutes to complete." All the same, page admins who reject to comply will no longer be able to post on their pages.

"On enforcement, each notice to the Page manager will accept a date in it that they demand to authorize by," the Facebook spokeswoman said. "If a Folio manager doesn't get authorized by the enforcement date in their find, they will be unable to mail."

The company is also tweaking the mode pages with a large U.s. audience appear over the platform. They'll now carry a new department that'll testify the public in what countries the page is being managed from. "We recollect knowing the state where a Folio is managed can help people better appraise the content of that Page. For instance, it might be helpful to know if a Page advocating for a political crusade pertaining to a certain area is managed from that country or not," Facebook told PCMag.

In the coming weeks, the Facebook-owned Instagram volition also introduce like features that can bear witness people more details about accounts with large audiences.