April 22 (UPI) -- Facebook announced Wednesday it will start including the country of origin on certain posts, in part to provide more information on election-related content.
The new effort is an expansion of a policy put in place in 2018 in which Facebook notified users about the primary country location of people who manage a Page.
Now, all posts made by "high-reach" Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts will list their location of origin.
Facebook is doing this "so people have more information to help them gauge the reliability and authenticity of the content they see in their feeds," said a blog post by Facebook product manager Anita Joseph and Instagram product manager Georgina Sheedy-Collier.
"We want to make sure people use our services authentically and can understand who is behind the posts they're seeing. This is particularly important when it comes to elections," the blog post said.
Facebook said it's piloting the expanded feature in the United States, focusing primarily on Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts based outside the United States but have largely American audiences.
"These changes are part of our broader efforts to protect elections and increase transparency on Facebook and Instagram so people can make more informed decisions about the posts they read, trust and share," the blog post said.
Facebook has made a number of changes since the 2016 election after special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation determined Russia used social media sites to attempt to interfere in the election by spreading misinformation.
