{"id":6295,"date":"2017-06-07T18:33:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T18:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-inserts-itself-into-politics-with-new-tools-that-help-elected-officials-reach-constituents.html"},"modified":"2017-06-07T18:33:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T18:33:47","slug":"facebook-inserts-itself-into-politics-with-new-tools-that-help-elected-officials-reach-constituents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-inserts-itself-into-politics-with-new-tools-that-help-elected-officials-reach-constituents.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook inserts itself into politics with new tools that help elected officials reach constituents"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Facebook this year has launched a number of features that make it easier for people to reach their government representatives on its social network, including \u201cTown Hall,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and related integrations with News Feed, as well as\u00a0ways to share reps\u2019 contact info<\/a> in your own posts. Today, the company is expanding on these initiatives with those designed for elected officials themselves. The new tools will help officials connect with their constituents, as well as better understand which issues their constituents care about most.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the social network is rolling out three new features: constituent badges,\u00a0constituent insights, and district targeting.<\/p>\n

Constituent badges are a new, opt-in feature that allow Facebook users to identify themselves as a person living in the district the elected official represents. Facebook determines whether or not someone is a\u00a0constituent based on the address information provided either in Town Hall, or as part of the process used to turn on the badges.<\/p>\n

While anyone could enter a fake address and pretend to be a constituent, Facebook has put controls in place to limit those bad actors. For starters, Facebook users can only be a verified\u00a0constituent based on one address at a time \u2013 and, if a person changes their address, their badge is removed from prior posts. Facebook also limits the number of times an address can be changed, we understand.<\/p>\n

The idea with the badges is to make it easier for elected officials to determine which Facebook comments, questions and concerns are being shared by those they actually represent. Whether or not they\u2019ll treat these sentiments with the same degree of importance as they would a phone call, email, or letter remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Facebook users will be prompted to turn on constituent badges when they like or comment on posts by their reps through a unit that appears on the page. Alternately, users can go to the Town Hall section on Facebook to turn on the badge themselves.<\/p>\n

Once enabled, badges will appear anytime a person comments on content shared by their own representatives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A second feature called Constituent Insights is designed to help elected officials learn which local news stories and content is popular in their district, so they can share their thoughts on those matters.<\/p>\n

This will be available to the reps through a new Page Insights feature, available to Page admins, which includes a horizontally scrollable section where locally trending news stories appear. Here, the elected officials can click a link to post that story to their Facebook Page, along with their thoughts on the issue.<\/p>\n

Additionally,\u00a0constituents will be able to browse through these same stories on a new Community tab on the official\u2019s Facebook Page.<\/p>\n

The third new feature \u2013 District Targeting \u2013 is arguably the most notable.<\/p>\n

This effectively gives elected officials the means of gathering feedback from their\u00a0constituents through Facebook directly, using either posts or polls that are targeted only towards those who actually live in their particular district.<\/p>\n

That means the official can post to Facebook to ask for feedback from constituents about an issue, and these posts will only be viewable by those who live in their district.<\/p>\n

Of course, this also means that the elected official would be taking an active \u2013 even proactive \u2013 role in engaging with their community and\u00a0constituent base, rather than waiting for\u00a0constituents to reach out to their office with their thoughts, as is often the case today.<\/p>\n

Overall, the combination of Town Hall with these new features aimed at government officials represent a growing effort at Facebook to become more involved in the political process and the dialog surrounding policy issues.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The changes also follow Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s post of a\u00a0nearly 6,000-word manifesto<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year where he discussed\u00a0a number of ambitions<\/a>\u00a0for the social network in the days ahead, including one focused on how Facebook could be used to increase civic engagement.<\/p>\n

In part, these moves are a reaction to the role Facebook played in the U.S. elections, where it did nothing to curb the widespread sharing of disinformation across its network \u2013 something that many have claimed helped contribute to Trump\u2019s win.<\/p>\n

On that front, Facebook has rolled out a number of new controls,\u00a0include things like\u00a0PSAs in the News Feed<\/a> about how to identify fake news stories; displays of related articles and fact checkers<\/a> before links are opened; displays of alternative news sources<\/a> in its Trending section: and it\u2019s\u00a0 downranking fake news stories<\/a> to make them less visible.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it has also rolled out features to help Facebook users become more politically engaged (instead of just enraged), by helping them find and contact reps, and more.<\/p>\n

Facebook says all three new features are rolling out starting today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/U7JXU3-f0WE\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook this year has launched a number of features that make it easier for people to reach their government representatives on its social network, including \u201cTown Hall,\u201d\u00a0and related integrations with <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-6295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t