Facebook announces crackdown on political advertising

Facebook announced Friday that it will begin verifying the purchasers of political and policy ads on its platform, a process that will require a confirmation of the advertisers' identities and locations, CNN reports. The move comes as the social media company is mired in controversy over its role as a platform for Russian trolls during the presidential election as well as the data firm Cambridge Analytica's recently revealed improper use of users' data. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify before Congress next week.

In addition to verifying ad buyers, Facebook will also label political and policy ads in order to show users who the purchaser is. "The ads will be put into a searchable database, which will be released in June," CNN explains. "The database will include details on how much the ads cost and what kinds of people the advertisers were targeting."

In addition to advertisers, Facebook pages with a large number of followers will also require the administrators to be verified. "This will make it much harder for people to run pages using fake accounts, or to grow virally and spread misinformation or divisive content that way," Zuckerberg explains in a post about the moves. Read the full details at Facebook here.

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