WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) will start using postcards sent by U.S. mail later this year to verify the identities and location of people who want to purchase U.S. election-related advertising on its site, a senior company executive said on Saturday.
The postcard verification is Facebook’s latest effort to respond to criticism from lawmakers, security experts and election integrity watchdog groups that it and other social media companies failed to detect and later responded slowly to Russia’s use of their platforms to spread divisive political content, including disinformation, during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Facebook revealed the plans a day after U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller unsealed an indictment accusing 13 Russians and three Russian companies of conducting a criminal and espionage conspiracy using social media to interfere in the election by boosting Republican Donald Trump and denigrating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
The process of using postcards containing a specific code will be required for advertising that mentions a specific candidate running for a federal office, Katie Harbath, Facebook’s global director of policy programs, said. The requirement will not apply to issue-based political ads, 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,” Harbath said at a weekend conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, where executives from Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O) also spoke.
“It won’t solve everything,” Harbath said in a brief interview with Reuters following her remarks.
But sending codes through old-fashioned mail was the most effective method the tech company could come up with to prevent Russians and other bad actors from purchasing ads while posing as someone else, Harbath said.
Foreign nationals are prohibited under U.S. law from contributing or donating money or anything else of value or making any expenditure in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States.
The indictment released on Friday laid out in specific detail how prosecutors believe Russians adopted false online personas to push divisive political content, including ads. The Russians also allegedly posed as Americans to stage political rallies in the United States and persuade real Americans to engage in pro-Trump activities.
Harbath did not say when Facebook would begin relying on postcard codes, but said they would be in use before this year’s mid-term congressional elections in November.
A Facebook spokesman declined to provide further details on the plan, but referred to a company blog post from last October announcing plans to roll out more robust identification verification measures for political advertisers.
That blog post did not specify what the verification process would entail.
MOSCOW (AP) — The Latest on the Russian response to U.S. indictments (all times local):
12:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump is undercutting a top aide again — this time national security adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster.
McMaster told an international audience that the evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 American election is beyond dispute. Trump tweeted late Saturday that McMaster left out some details.
“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!” Trump was continuing his efforts to pin Russian collusion on the Democrats and their nominee Hillary Clinton.
McMaster was answering a question from a Russian delegate at a Munich Security Conference on Saturday. Referring to the indictment of 13 Russians announced Friday, McMaster says “with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now incontrovertible” of Russia cyber-meddling
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6:15 p.m.
Russia’s former ambassador to the United States is dismissing detailed allegations of attempted Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as “fantasies” rooted in domestic politics.
Former Ambassador Sergei Kislyak said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday: “I’m not sure that I can trust American law enforcement to be the most precise and truthful source of information about what Russians do.”
Kislyak’s comments came as top Russian and American officials exchanged barbs over Friday’s indictment of 13 Russians accused of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.
Kislyak said: “I have never done anything of this sort. None in my embassy did. So whatever allegations are being mounted against us are simply fantasies that are being used for political reasons inside the United States in the fight between different sides of the political divide.”
The senior diplomat’s name has come up in the FBI and congressional investigations of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Kislyak before Trump’s inauguration.
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3:45 p.m.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser has told an international audience that the evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 American election is beyond dispute.
H.R. McMaster was answering a question from a Russian delegate, shortly after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov left the same stage at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
Referring to the indictment of 13 Russians announced Friday, McMaster says “with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now incontrovertible” of Russia cyber-meddling.
He also scoffed at any move to work with Russia on cybersecurity, saying “we would love to have a cyber dialogue when Russia is sincere about curtailing its sophisticated form of espionage.”
Lavrov, just moments earlier, had dismissed the indictments as “just blabber” through an interpreter.
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3:05 p.m.
Russia’s foreign minister says the U.S. indictment of a group of Russians accused of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election is “just blabber.”
Asked about the indictments Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, Sergey Lavrov replied: “I have no response. You can publish anything, and we see those indictments multiplying, the statements multiplying.” He argued that U.S. officials also have said no country influenced the U.S. election results.
Lavrov added: “Until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber.”
The federal indictment brought Friday by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller represents the most detailed allegations to date of illegal Russian meddling during the campaign that sent Donald Trump to the White House.
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12:50 p.m.
One of the 13 Russians indicted by the United States for interfering in the American presidential election says the U.S. justice system is unfair.
Mikhail Burchik was quoted as saying by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that “I am very surprised that, in the opinion of the Washington court, several Russian people interfered in the elections in the United States. I do not know how the Americans came to this decision.”
Burchik was identified in the indictment as executive director of an organization that allegedly sowed propaganda on social media to try to interfere with the 2016 election.
Burchik was quoted as saying Saturday that “they have one-sided justice, and it turns out that you can hang the blame on anyone.”
U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller brought the federal indictment Friday.
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