Facebook to Label National Origin of Popular Posts in the US

The new policy will apply to popular pages about elections, entertainment and other topics.

By Associated Press | Updated: 23 April 2020 14:11 IST

Facebook to Label National Origin of Popular Posts in the US

Russia has often been accused of using social media to try to influence political discourse in the US

Highlights

The new feature will label posts with their geographic origin
Posts from popular Facebook, Instagram pages will be stamped with origin
Facebook will initially target pages based outside of the US

Facebook said on Wednesday that it will label posts from popular accounts with their geographic origin in an attempt to curb political misinformation by foreign-based pages that mimic legitimate groups and political parties.

The new policy will apply to popular pages about elections, entertainment and other topics and will stamp every post they make on Facebook and Instagram with its origin. For instance, an Instagram account targeting US voters but based in Brazil will have every post labelled with “Based in Brazil.” Users then can swipe to find out more information about the account.

It's the social network's latest attempt to fight election-related misinformation. Russia and other countries have been using social media to try to influence political discourse in the US and elsewhere, often by masquerading as local interest groups.

Facebook will initially target pages based outside of the US that reach a large number of people inside the US The labels, the company says, will help people “gauge the reliability and authenticity” of what they see.

While the labels add a new layer of information — and one users won't have to click to find — it's unlikely to help with more insidious attempts to influence the November presidential election and sow political discord in the US.

Last fall, for instance, Facebook removed dozens of pages and accounts that purported to be Americans focused on US politics, but which actually originated in Iran and Russia. This March, meanwhile, both Twitter and Facebook announced takedowns of sophisticated foreign operations showing that showed Russian trolls outsourcing election interference efforts to countries in West Africa.

Is iPhone SE the ultimate 'affordable' iPhone for India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.