Facebook has been constantly grilled by lawmakers on how it handled things during the 2016 Presidential election. Now, it appears that Facebook has come up with a plan to prevent meddling from happening again.
The social media company plans to mail out verification postcards through US postal service to anyone purchasing ads related to US election, according to a report from Reuters. In the postcard, there will be a special code that advertisers must provide back to Facebook in order to prove that they’re located in the United States.
Facebook will use this new verification system as a requirement for all advertising that mention a specific candidate running for a federal office, such as a presidency. This new system will be implemented in time for the mid-term elections coming this November.
“If you run an ad mentioning a candidate, we are going to mail you a postcard and you will have to use that code to prove you are in the United States,” Katie Harbath, Facebook’s global director of policy programs, said on Saturday. She also acknowledged to Reuters that this this process Facebook is implementing “won’t solve everything” but it’s a step the company is taking to prevent foreign nationals from spending money under fake cover to influence the politics in the US.
