Facebook says it’ll now require political-leaning advertisers to verify their identity
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/6/17206670/facebook-issue-ad-verification-advertisers-pages
Facebook advertisers who want to promote their views on key political issues — like abortion and Second Amendment rights — will now have to verify their identity and location, the company announced today. These “issue ads” will also be labeled as “political ads” on the platform, along with information about who’s paying for their existence. The company says artificial intelligence and actual humans will comb through advertisers to identify those that need to be labeled and verified. Users can also report ads that seem political in nature and are missing verification.
In addition to advertisers needing to prove who they are, managers of “large” pages will have to do so, as well. Facebook hasn't said what constitutes a large page, but the managers of those pages will have to demonstrate where they live and who they are. The company says this should make it harder for fake Pages to spring up and for them to go viral, a la the Macedonian teens. These changes will come to the US at first and will roll out around the world this summer. Facebook previously instituted this verification for electoral ads.