Facebook resort to demanding political advertisers use physical postcards to prove they are not meddling on behalf of Russia
The old fashioned vetting method comes after U.S. officials accused 13 Russians and three Russian companies of distorting public debate in the 2016 presidential election
FACEBOOK will use postcards to verify the identities of users who buy political adverts in a desperate bid to combat Russian meddling in western elections.
The social media giant's vetting of paid content came under fire after revelations that Russian-linked agents promoted divisive content on the site.
At a weekend conference, Katie Harbath, Facebook's global director of policy programs, announced the plans to resort to old-fashioned mailing methods - apparently the best solution the tech company can come up with.
She said: “If you run an ad mentioning a candidate, we are going to mail you a postcard and you will have to use that code to prove you are in the United States”.
“It won’t solve everything,” Harbath added in a brief interview with Reuters following her remarks.
The postcards will contain a specific code required for advertising that mentions a specific candidate running for a federal office in the States.
Executives from Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google also attended the National Association of Secretaries of State event this weekend.
The move comes a day after U.S. officials accusing 13 Russians and three Russian companies of using social media to conduct criminal espionage in the 2016 American election.
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U.S. Special Counsel Robert Muller said online platforms had been used to boost Republican Donald Trump and denigrate Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Under U.S. law, foreign nationals are forbidden from contributing or donating money or making any expenditures in connection with any type of election.
Harbath did not disclose when the Facebook will start using the postcards, but said they would be in use before thie year's mid-term congressional elections in November.
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