Security News > 2020 > June > Facebook to verify identities on accounts that churn out viral posts
Facebook announced on Thursday that it's going to be verifying the identity of some US profiles that pump out posts that reach a mass of people.
The platform's doing it to spare us from the blathering of bots and fake accounts, or what Facebook calls "People who have a pattern of inauthentic behavior on Facebook and whose posts start to rapidly go viral in the US.".
At the time, Facebook was mopping up after the 2016 US presidential election, facing pointed questions from Congress about many things, including Russian meddling in the election and who, exactly, was purchasing ads on Facebook.
Part of the mop-up: in April 2018, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would thenceforth verify the identity and location of anybody who wanted to run political or issue ads.
If whatever accounts with large audiences Facebook chooses to verify identity on choose not to go along with it, or if the ID they provide doesn't match their linked Facebook account, you can say bye-bye and blub, blub, blub.