One of the biggest issues plaguing the social media industry is the presence of bots and fake accounts that seem to be manipulating the platform for personal benefits. Instagram may soon be able to put this issue at rest.
The social media platform is planning to demand for the identity proofs from users who demonstrate suspicious behavious. According to a report by Engadget, the demand will be made if the company finds any “potential inauthentic behavior.”
While this new change may not affect most users, it is expected to curb the growth of inauthentic profiles on Instagram.
According to a statement by the company, the IDs will be asked to confirm that the account that is being tried to open belongs to them, to confirm or edit the user’s age, to process payments and to help prevent abuse such as scams or phishing.
The company explains further by saying that “This includes accounts potentially engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior, or when we see the majority of someone’s followers are in a different country to their location, or if we find signs of automation, such as bot accounts.”
Once Instagram demands for authentication via identity proofs, the user will have to deposit it to access the profile. If they fail to do so, their accounts will either be disabled entirely or their posts will be down-ranked in the feed.
Parent company Facebook has also stepped up their campaign against misinformation as US Presidential elections are closing in.Facebook also asks users to verify accounts that have an expansive reach.