Facebook wants ad buyers to provide Social Security numbers

There are new rules for anybody who wants to buy political ads on Facebook.

It is all about confirming a buyer’s identity and attaching a “paid for by” tag to the ads, according to WPTV.

Users who want to buy certain ads will have to identify themselves by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number.

This applies to ads about political campaigns, guns, abortion, immigration and more.

Those who want to buy these kinds of ads will also need to give Facebook a picture of a government-issued ID and provide a U.S. mailing address.

Facebook says it will use all this information to confirm the ad buyer's identity and then delete it.

The new guidelines for political ads comes as the social media giant is reeling from revelations related to alleged Russian election interference and the improper accessing of its users data.

This month, the House Intelligence Committee released a cache of more than 3,000 ads purchased by the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin group that purchased political advertising on Facebook in an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took his apology tour to Brussels on Tuesday.

He faced questions  about the scandal over improper use of millions of Facebook users’ data.

He defended his company over the misuse of data by the British company Cambridge Analytica, a consultancy that worked on the Trump presidential campaign.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal affected up to 87 million users and prompting several apologies from  Zuckerberg and generated calls for regulation and for users to leave the social network.