- Facebook will launch a pilot program to give US political candidates and staff, as well as staff members and representatives from federal and state political party committees, more tools to secure their Pages.
- Security options will include two-factor authorization and a monitoring process to block potential hacking threats.
- Campaign marketers and staff will have new security tools to protect Pages from potential hackers.
With Facebook’s continued efforts to protect its platform from malicious behavior and bad actors aiming to influence US elections, the social media platform is expanding its security options for Pages that are owned to US political candidates running for state and federal office, and even staff and representatives of political party committees. Facebook launched a pilot program on Monday that offers two-factor authentication and monitoring for potential hacks to admins managing US political candidate pages.
There wasn’t much in the way of details in the announcement on how the monitoring process for a potential hack will work. But, it did say that the program will help Facebook detect any unusual activity targeting a page.
“If we discover an attack against one campaign official, we can review and protect other accounts that are enrolled in our program and affiliated with that same campaign,” writes Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, “As we detect abuse, we will continue to share relevant information with law enforcement and other companies so we can maximize our effectiveness.”
Due to the fact we’re creeping up on the November midterm election, Facebook’s added security measures follow the company’s most recent crackdown on bad actors after it removed 32 Pages across its platform and Instagram for coordinated malicious behavior.
This newest update gives the candidates and their staff an added level of security around their Pages — which is the most used vehicle for US candidates to broadcast their messages on the platform, both with organic posts and promoted content.
In order to access the tools, the Page admin will need to enroll for the two-factor authentication campaign security platform. After an admin is enrolled, they will be able to add other people from their campaign or political committee.