Facebook is introducing a new feature that will enable users to see which pages and accounts tied to Russia they interacted with, a change that comes after members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the company to tell users if they were exposed to Russian propaganda.
The social media platform is creating a portal that people can use to learn which Facebook pages and Instagram accounts created by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency they may have liked or followed between Jan. 2015 and Aug. 2017.
“It is important that people understand how foreign actors tried to sow division and mistrust using Facebook before and after the 2016 U.S. election,” the company announced Wednesday. “That’s why as we have discovered information, we have continually come forward to share it publicly and have provided it to congressional investigators. And it’s also why we’re building the tool we are announcing today.”
The portal will be available by the end of the year and can be accessed through the Facebook Help Center. The company will only show users the names of the Facebook pages and Instagram accounts tied to the Internet Research Agency they liked or followed.
Facebook revealed several months ago the Internet Research Agency, described as a Russian troll farm, purchased ads on the social media platform and created thousands of posts from fake accounts.
Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel, told the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month nearly 150 million people on Facebook and Instagram in the U.S. were exposed to content tied to Russia.
Representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss how Russia used the platforms as part of its efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Since Facebook discovered that Russia used the social media platform to spread propaganda during the election, the company has rolled out several new policies designed to increase transparency, including requiring all paid political ads related to federal U.S. elections to include a disclaimer.