Facebook Is Adding Location Info Directly To Pages And Instagram Posts

Facebook is working to increase the transparency of its high-reach Pages — as well as some Instagram accounts — by adding publicly-visible location information to individual posts. The move aims to shed light on potential abuse of its system, helping users determine whether a Page is authentic. The location information will be provided for every post published by the Page.

It's no secret that Facebook is one of the social media platforms that has been exploited by 'negative actors' to manipulate the public, sow division in nations, and disrupt elections. Facebook has introduced a number of features and steps over past years to address this problem, the latest of which is a pilot featuring location info on some Pages' posts.

Under this pilot, Facebook will add location info on the posts shared by high-reach Pages and Instagram accounts, but only in the US. This test will involve Pages and accounts that originate from outside of the US, but that reach large audiences of users who are mostly located in the US.

It's unclear how extensively Facebook plans to make this feature available, including whether it will eventually offer the same info on Pages that primarily target other countries. It's also unclear whether the company plans to bring this feature to small Pages and Instagram accounts in the future or restrict it to only high-reach accounts.

This new feature builds upon the one that Facebook introduced back in 2018 — the ability to view the main country where a Page's manager(s) were located, shedding light on people who pretended to be someone they're not. This feature is joined by the 'About this Account' feature found on Instagram.