Facebook doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to politics.

They (perhaps) unwittingly helped Russia meddle in the American election, and bear great responsibility for the disaster that is Myanmar.

Now, in an attempt to avoid another election scandal, Facebook is adding a new safety feature to South African pages ahead of the general election.

That’s in May of this year, in case you didn’t know.

According to BusinessInsider, South African Facebook pages will soon display where the managers of those pages are located.

South African page managers received a notice of the changes on Tuesday morning.

Soon, all users visiting the pages will see additional information such as the primary country locations where pages are being managed from, the note read.

“This may include agencies, advertisers, social media marketers or anyone your Page may work with, regardless of the person’s level of activity on the Page.”

Facebook first revealed the proposed change in February when they announced their partnership with SA fact-checking organisation Africa Check.

The network said it is working hard to ensure successful elections in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon and Senegal.

Facebook also plans to remove hundreds of fake accounts, providing training to journalists in online safety and make political ads more transparent by removing foreign-funded adverts.

They’re trying. Let’s see if they get it right.

[source:businessinsider]