Editor's take: What started as a simple project to connect college students in 2004 has morphed into a global communications and influencing platform that Zuckerberg never could have seen coming. Sure, it's a vehicle for change and has made him one of the richest and most recognizable people in the world but it has also come with a multitude of unforeseen headaches. If given the option, I wonder if he would go back and do it all differently.
Facebook is aiming to be even more transparent with regard to who is behind the posts that you read on the platform and on Instagram.
The social networking giant is piloting a new feature that shows the location of origin on every post made by high-reach Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts. The trial is starting in the US and specifically, with Pages and accounts that are based internationally but have a large audience within the US.
Facebook product manager Anita Joseph and Instagram product manager Georgina Sheedy-Collier noted that the new pilot is an extension of earlier efforts the companies took to give people a better understanding of who is behind an account and help them evaluate their authenticity and reliability.
The measures appear to be politically motivated as Joseph and Sheedy-Collier specifically mentioned they are part of broader efforts to protect elections and increase transparency. Notably, Facebook didn't define what constitutes a "high-reach" account. It's also unclear if location data will be retroactively added to older posts (presumably not).
Image credit: TY Lim