Facebook Wants to Help You Be a Better Citizen
March 27 2017 - 12:29PM
Dow Jones News
By Geoffrey A. Fowler
Millions of us turn to Facebook to talk politics. Now the social
network wants to get us more politically active in the real
world.
Facebook has rolled out a nonpartisan civic engagement service
in the U.S. called Town Hall. It identifies your elected officials
-- even local ones -- sends reminders to vote and goads you to pick
up the phone.
It is one of the first glimpses of how Facebook will execute on
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's vision of using the social
network's influence -- built on keeping up with friends -- to
address humanity's biggest problems.
"Our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for
community -- for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing
us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all," Mr. Zuckerberg
wrote in a manifesto last month.
Facebook has a mixed record in tackling these issues. Its first
major voter drive in the U.S. last year helped register more than
two million people. But its main product, the News Feed, also had
an invisible hand in spreading misinformation and contributing to
polarization during the election season.
Town Hall won't address all those concerns, but it offers civic
information that can be devilishly hard to track down on your own.
On the web, Town Hall is accessible via a blue icon on the right
side of members' News Feed. On phones, it lives with other Facebook
tools under a button with three vertical bars.
One of Town Hall's most useful capabilities is identifying your
elected officials. To do that, you have to tell Facebook where you
live. The more precise you are, the more representatives it will
identify. Many Facebook members already share some location
information, and an address you enter in Town Hall won't be
displayed, shared or used to serve ads, says Facebook
The social network doesn't have comprehensive data on the
roughly 519,000 elected officials in the U.S. -- but no other
database does either. (Facebook found 11 of the roughly 30
officials who represent me in San Francisco.) What's better, with
one click, Town Hall lets you choose to follow all your officials'
posts on Facebook.
And now when you post about one of your representatives on
Facebook, the social network will prompt you to "share your
thoughts directly" by more traditional means -- phone, fax or mail.
Particularly in Washington, phone calls and faxes from constituents
can hold greater sway than emails, tweets and posts.
"This suite of products is committed to a version of civic life
where voting is a cornerstone but not the end of it," said Facebook
product marketing manager Jeremy Philip Galen.
A number of startups and nonprofits have also introduced
nonpartisan tools to track and contact representatives, but none
have Facebook's reach. And Facebook says it has more tools planned.
"The more information you have at your disposal, the more active
you can be in a strategic way," said Mr. Galen.
Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 27, 2017 12:14 ET (16:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024