Facebook will require users in the US with 'high reach' to verify their identity

Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 the company's policy requiring people who manage large pages and advertisers who want to run political ads on Facebook to reveal their identity. Now, the social networking giant is extending that verification process to accounts whose posts often go viral.

Facebook announced today that it will begin requiring users with "high reach" to verify their identity. This applies to U.S.-based profiles that "have a pattern of inauthentic behavior" on the platform. The change is intended to help users discover more authentic content from real people instead of bots or users that hide their identity behind fake accounts.

Anita Joseph and Michele Paselli, Product Managers at Facebook, wrote in a blog post, "We want people to feel confident that they understand who’s behind the content they’re seeing on Facebook and this is particularly important when it comes to content that’s reaching a lot of people." Viral posts will begin to reach fewer people if their owners reject the verification requirement or if the ID they submitted fails to match their account on Facebook.

Page admins will also need to be verified through the platform's authorization process. Unless they complete that step, Facebook will block them from posting on behalf of the Pages they manage. Facebook says it will securely store the IDs of verified accounts.