Facebook, Instagram add location info to high-reach posts ahead of 2020 elections
The social media giants want you to know who and where political posts come from.
- I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Facebook and Instagram will begin providing location info on high-reach posts.
Facebook has begun adding location information to posts by high-reach Facebook pages and Instagram accounts on all their posts. It's part of a greater effort to ensure people know who is behind the posts, accounts and pages on its social media platforms, especially during the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Facebook and Instagram said Wednesday.
Facebook and Instagram will trial the feature in the US. It'll target accounts and pages based outside the US that have big audiences inside the US.
This way, "people have more information to help them gauge the reliability and authenticity of the content they see in their feeds," Anita Joseph and Georgina Sheedy-Collier, product managers at Facebook and Instagram, respectively, wrote in a blog post.
"These changes are part of our broader efforts to protect elections and increase transparency on Facebook and Instagram so people can make more informed decisions about the posts they read, trust and share."
By swiping up on a post or page, you'll see a message like this: "This account and many of its followers are based in difference locations," and "Account based in Brazil."
