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Summary: Facebook announced that it will start using postcards sent by U.S. mail to verify the identities and locations of people who want to advertise material which “mentions a specific candidate running for a federal office” on its platform.
This change is in response to the indictment of 13 Russian officials, and 3 Russian companies who supposedly used social media to promote Donald Trump and “denigrate” Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. The postcards will have a “special code” which the advertiser has to return to Facebook, in order for them to have their content displayed on the platform. This method allows Facebook to verify that the advertiser is actually in the US.
Opinion: While I feel like this is a step in the right direction, I am not too confident about how well these changes will deter future election meddling. I feel like if foreigners strongly want to publish election propaganda on Facebook, they can do so by sending people to the U.S., or connecting with people in the U.S., who can access the postcard and get the special code.
Questions:
What are your thoughts? Is this going to work? Are there better alternatives?
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4 comments:
I agree with both of the points you've made. This certainly does seem like a step in the right direction. Its smart to make changes based on problems that occurred, and hopefully Facebook isn't that only company that is planning on taking these extra measures for security. However, as you said, this may not be that effective. Just off the top of my head I can think of ways to get around this. Some may argue that "if there's a will, there's a way," but maybe there are alternatives to be even more secure. Regardless, since Facebook has such a huge influence in the world, just the idea that they're acknowledging what has happened and working towards differing themselves to prevent this in the future is a very important step.
I can definitely understand both Emily and Ariana's doubt in Facebook's new policies. When I was reading about fake news in late 2016, some of the internet trolls were Eastern European teenagers. It seems like they were just messing with people and didn't realize the consequences of their actions. It was so easy for them to just make up fake headlines and let them go viral on Twitter and Facebook. I think Facebook's new actions will help deter fake campaigns and trolls because they will be forced to connect a concrete location and address, which makes it easier for them to be tracked, something they don't want. There are totally ways to get around this postcard idea, but Facebook is making it easier to uncover internet trolls, which is a great step. No system is perfect and we are all still working out restrictions on the world wide web.
It's definitely one of the better methods to confirm an advertiser's identity and location, but as previously mentioned, I feel like it would be possible for foreign companies to get in contact with American companies and post that way. However, it's definitely important to be able to maintain the integrity of these advertisers; Facebook advertisements are seen by a lot of people, and are probably already regulated.
I agree with everybody above in that this new identification process is a good measure to deter fraudulence. However, I don't think it will have a huge impact on future elections unless other companies take up similar security measures. While prohibiting fake campaigns is not a bad thing, I'm not sure about how influential these posts were on the election so I'm skeptical about how efficient this system will be.
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