Facebook says it will mail postcards to would-be buyers of election-related ads mentioning federal candidates, will have codes to verify identity and location
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook Inc will start using postcards sent by U.S. mail later this year to verify the identities …
Context & Ripple Effects
The postcard program is the opening move in a verification ladder Facebook built after criticism of its election ad practices. Two months later it extended identity and location checks to issue ads and admins of large Pages, and by mid-2019 it had added tax-ID numbers or FEC registration as proof requirements — each step raising the bar for who can buy political reach on the platform.
What makes the sequence analytically interesting is that the mechanics were contested from the start: legal observers questioned how Facebook would verify donors behind US nonprofits buying issue ads, a gap the postcard scheme never addressed because it only covers ads naming federal candidates.
First-order effects
- Would-be buyers of ads mentioning federal candidates must now receive a physical postcard with a code at a verifiable US address before running ads — immediately excluding buyers who cannot or will not disclose a real-world location.
Second-order effects
- Buyers priced out of federal-candidate ads shift toward issue ads, where Facebook's own later rules show the verification was weaker — pushing scrutiny onto the issues category and the nonprofits funding it.
Third-order effects
- If the escalation from postcards to tax-ID checks holds as a pattern, political advertising on major platforms converges on de facto know-your-customer standards, with platforms — not regulators — setting the identity bar for paid political speech.
The trend: Platform-run identity verification for political ads is ratcheting upward, moving from mailing-address checks toward formal registration requirements that platforms impose ahead of legislation.