To Stop Russian Election Meddlers, Facebook Goes Analog

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                    <h5>In Brief</h5>&#13;
                    In the aftermath of the Russian hacking scandal in the course of the 2016 election, whereby social media was a main goal, Facebook introduced this week it is going to be rolling out new verification measures for political advert gross sales. This time, they will be offline.                  </p>
                
                
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                    <p>Now that Special Counsel <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/special-counsel-indicts-13-people-russian-troll-farm-on-conspiracy-charges/">Robert Mueller has indicted 13 individuals </a>and a number of other teams from Russia for utilizing social media instruments like Facebook advertisements to affect the 2016 Presidential Election, Facebook has responded with a plan to cease such interference from occurring once more.</p>

Ironically, regardless of the high-tech nature of cyber crime and the constantly-connected world of social media, Facebook has chosen to take a really old-school method to stop future election meddling.

At this week’s National Association of Secretaries of State convention in Washington DC, Facebook’s world politics and authorities outreach director Katie Harbath announced that the corporate might be rolling out a brand new verification measure for those that buy Facebook advertisements for political figures on the platform. Once the acquisition is made on-line, a postcard with a verification code might be despatched to the handle the customer offers (which must be within the U.S.). The purchaser should enter the snail-mailed code on the positioning as a way to full the transaction and see the advert go reside.

Yes, you heard that proper: the social media megalith is mailing out postcards. Physical postcards that may take a couple of days a minimum of to look in your mailbox, stamp and all.

Harbath admitted to Reuters that the offline technique “won’t solve everything” that got here to outline social media’s involvement within the hacking scandal, however mentioned it’s probably the most instantly implementable answer the corporate might reply with on the heels of Mueller’s indictments.

The postcards will go to U.S. businesses that purchase Facebook advertisements making point out of particular political candidates (similar to endorsing a presidential candidate), however gained’t be mailed out to confirm issue-based political advertisements.

Last fall, Facebook’s vice chairman of advertisements, Rob Goldman, published a blog saying the corporate’s dedication to growing its transparency about advert gross sales. While no specifics got within the submit, it did make point out of elevated verification efforts and a searchable database of federal election advertisements. As for the postcards, Harbath mentioned the postcard-verification protocol was anticipated to roll out earlier than this yr’s midterm elections in November.

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