INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Facebook today announced it implementing a new measure to secure Facebook Pages with large United States followings in order to make it
harder for people to administer a Page using a &fake or compromised account.& Beginning with those that have large United States
followings, some Facebook Pages will now have to go through a &Page Publishing Authorization& process
This will require the Page managers to secure their accounts and verity their location.
Facebook says the process only takes a few minutes
If a Page requires this authorization, the Page admins will receive a notice at the top of their News Feed directing them to begin the
process.
If they choose not to submit to Authorization, they will no longer be able to post to their Pages, the company says
Enforcement will begin this month.
When the Page owners click through, a message informs them why this is being done and what steps they
To secure their account, Facebook is asking the Page manager to secure their account using two-factor authentication
This makes it more difficult for their account to be hijacked by a third-party, and is a best practice that all Facebook users & not just
Page admins & should follow.
Separately, the Facebook Page managers will need to verify their location
This will then be set as the Page primary country and display in the new Page Info tab Facebook introduced in June.
Here, Facebook will also
show a list of countries of the people who manage the Page, and how many managers hail from each country in that list.
In addition, under
Page History, Facebook will show when a Page has merged with another.
The company says this new policy will initially roll out to Pages with
large United States audiences, and Instagram will soon do something similar
Specifically, Instagram will allow people to see more information about accounts with large audiences.
Our goal is to prevent organizations
and individuals from creating accounts that mislead people about who they are or what they&re doing,& reads a Facebook announcement about
&These updates are part of our continued efforts to increase authenticity and transparency of Pages on our platform.
The changes follow the
recent news that Facebook had found evidence of possible Russia-linked influence campaigns on its network, whose goal was to influence the
The company removed 8 Facebook Pages, 17 Facebook profiles, and 7 Instagram accounts as a result of its findings.
New policies to make
Facebook Pages that reach a sizable number of Americans more secure, and their management more transparent, seems like a good first step on
Though it still possible that those aiming to disrupt democracy and seed division will eventually find workarounds for these measures at
some point in the future.
