Facebook Announces Offline Verification for Political Ads Ahead of 2019 Elections
Dec. 18, 2018In a bid to further strengthen the company’s stance against election meddling, Facebook has now announced anoffline verificationprocess that will require political advertisers to provide scanned copies of their identity and address proof that will be verified by Facebook’s team in India.
In an email sent topolitical advertiserswho leverage the social media platform for digital campaigning, Facebook revealed that it will send a team to verify all the necessary documents in person. The new move marks the first time that Facebook has adopted a ground-level approach to verify the identity of advertisers and prevent bad players from running political campaigns which are in violation of Facebook’s policies. Alternatively, the advertisers can choose to receive an official approval from Facebook that will be sent via post.
“We are committed to maintaining elections integrity and this is something we take very seriously. We have been adding to our capabilities and defenses over the last few months and have done a lot of work to prevent interference and protect the integrity of elections”,a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying byEconomic Times.
The compliance withFacebook’s new ad transparency policieswas made mandatory for political advertisers in India earlier this month. Moreover, Facebook will also start showing a disclaimer on all political ads starting next year to provide users more information about the person or organization running the campaign, alongside an openly accessible archive of such ads.
