Facebook tightens noose around fake accounts, demands authorization from users

Facebook tightens noose around fake accounts, demands authorization from users

The world’s largest social media network Facebook on Friday took measures to make it more difficult to run fake or compromised accounts on its platform as it demanded authorization from its users who have a large number of followers in the US. “Today we’re introducing Page publishing authorization starting with people that manage a Page with a large audience in the US,” Facebook said. People who manage these Pages will be required to complete an authorization process in order to continue to post, making it harder for people to administer a Page using a fake or compromised account, said the California-based social media company.

The new measures will ask administrators of Facebook pages to secure their account with two-factor authentication and confirm their primary home location. Facebook said people will see more details in the Info and Ads section of Pages after a new section is added to show the primary country locations where those Pages are managed from. Facebook said the requirement will be enforced soon this month, which will be applied to other Facebook platforms such as Instagram in the next few weeks.

The new measures are part of Facebook’s recent campaigns to prevent organizations and individuals from creating accounts that mislead its users before the US mid-term elections are going to take place in November. Last week, Facebook deleted 32 Pages and accounts from its platform and Instagram for being “involved in coordinated inauthentic behaviour”. It said its security unit has found a coordinated campaign on its platform aiming to exert political influence ahead of the November US elections.