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Facebook Forces Admins of Popular Pages To Share Location Info

The new requirement is designed to help Facebook root out scammers and foreign governments from abusing Facebook pages to influence the public. Admins for Facebook pages with 'large audiences in the US' will have to start turning location tracking on.

 & Michael Kan Principal Reporter

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Facebook is rolling out a new requirement to people who manage pages with a large following in the US: They'll soon have to confirm their locations.

The new authentication requirement is designed to help the company root out scammers and Russian agents from abusing Facebook pages to influence the public. "Our goal is to prevent organizations and individuals from creating accounts that mislead people about who they are or what they're doing," the company said in a post on Friday.

The new requirement forces the Facebook page admins to turn on location tracking. They'll also have secure their accounts with two-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of login protection to prevent hacking. "If a Page manager authorizes and then turns off location, they might be required to turn location services on again to post to the Page," a Facebook spokeswoman told PCMag.

The company isn't elaborating on what constitutes a page with a large following, but for good reason. "We aren't sharing exact numbers (of the followers needed) as bad actors may use it to game the system," the spokeswoman added.

Facebook Page Verification

The tech giant originally announced the new authentication measure back in April amid ongoing concerns that foreign governments will try to exploit Facebook to interfere in upcoming US elections. In February, federal investigators indicted 13 Russian nationals for conspiring to buy political ads on social media to influence the American public during the 2016 presidential race. In response, Facebook has been requiring political ad buyers to first verify their identities and locations with the company.

Facebook said the new authentication process for pages, which starts rolling out today, "should only take a few minutes to complete." However, page admins who refuse to comply will no longer be able to post on their pages.

"On enforcement, each notice to the Page manager will have a date in it that they need to authorize by," the Facebook spokeswoman said. "If a Page manager doesn't get authorized by the enforcement date in their notice, they will be unable to post."

The company is also tweaking the way pages with a large US audience appear over the platform. They'll now carry a new section that'll show the public in what countries the page is being managed from. "We think knowing the country where a Page is managed can help people better assess the content of that Page. For example, it might be helpful to know if a Page advocating for a political cause pertaining to a certain area is managed from that country or not," Facebook told PCMag.

In the coming weeks, the Facebook-owned Instagram will also introduce similar features that can show people more details about accounts with large audiences.

About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

  • My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
  • I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
  • The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
  • Xbox 360 FTW
  • The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
  • The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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