Facebook Unveils New Tools To Help Elected Officials Reach Constituents (techcrunch.com) 52
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: 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 "Town Hall," and related integrations with News Feed, as well as ways to share reps' contact info 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. Specifically, the social network is rolling out three new features: constituent badges, constituent insights, and district targeting. 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. 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. The third new feature -- District Targeting -- is arguably the most notable. This effectively gives elected officials the means of gathering feedback from their constituents through Facebook directly, using either posts or polls that are targeted only towards those who actually live in their particular district. 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.
Oh sure... (Score:1)
THIS won't be abused at all. It will be unbiased and completely open! Honest! No foolin'!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If they're harassed and abused by this, cheers to that. If they are the ones abusing us via facebook now, how would I be able to tell? Zero answers on trumpcare on facebook's new thing is still the same number as we had before.
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I ditched my Facebook acct years ago.
I feel a lot like the guy who choose to exit the Market in 2008, before the crash.
Or the guy who canceled his plane tickets...before it crashed.
Or the guy who disembarked the ship...before it sank.
Or the guy who sold his house on the hill...just before the landslide.
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I think that the worst part of all of this is that if the politicians adopt this, then having a facebook account will be somewhat mandatory if you want to participate in democracy, and therefore have your political views cataloged and possibly used against you.
What a fucking shitty idea.
selection bias for the good (Score:1, Funny)
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I think the point is that it's mostly older people who use facebook. Younger generations mostly dislike facebook.
Is this legal?? (Score:3)
What about those people that don't have Facebook...and want to interact with their congress critter.
I don't mind this maybe being an additional venue...However I see the congress critters seeing this and thinking everyone is on FB and this will be their sole mode of contact online.....
It doesn't seem right for such an important thing, people/govt workers almost requiring an account with a private company.....I could see this easily becoming the defacto standard, which it should not be....
A more open platform is what is called for here...
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you are still free to call or write a normal letter, i suppose.
but i agree, official business should, at least, NOT be conducted on *third party* web sites.
if the house or senate or whatever wants to integrate online tools for their elected officials, they should build it into THEIR respective sites, but still, of course, maintain offline options.
i should most certainly not have to have a facebook account (or similar) just to communicate with an elected official or government agency. absolutely, positively,
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You start off by asking if this is legal, and I fear that question is probably a distraction. It's probably currently legal, and no worse for representing constituents than the lobbying that has gone on for decades. However, I think the more important question is, is this a good idea?
I would 100% agree that a more open platform is called for. In fact, it seems to me that we should be using technology to make government more open and transparent. Perhaps, even if it is currently legal, it shouldn't be.
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Ri-i-ight... all that's ailing the American political scene is fixable with a web site and the right software.
I think what we need is for politicians to get off their butts and travel home to their districts and have real meetings with real people---instead of using their recesses to go on junkets paid for by the billionaires funding their re-election campaigns. Why don't they go home? Because they're afraid that their constituents are going to subject them to some well-deserved anger for the piss-poor jo
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Ri-i-ight... all that's ailing the American political scene is fixable with a web site and the right software.... It's laughable to think that the solution to the disconnect between politicians and their constituents is some ridiculous social media platform.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me, or if you think I was saying a social networking site could fix our political system. I said, "I actually really like the idea of trying to experiment with public forums to find ways to give everyone a voice". I'm not even necessarily talking about a "forum" in the sense of an Internet forum, but just like... a place for conversation. Being able to communicate and advocate for your position is vital to democracy, and the way people have traditionally communicated
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I'm not against finding new ways to communicate. I just can't see something like Facebook being that mechanism. A technological means is not necessarily inclusive. And if you've spent any time on FB you know how ugly the communications can get. How these tools would keep that sort of thing under control--if that's even possible--is not known. And you brought up something I never touched on: the commercial aspect of it. I think the whole idea of FB--or any other company being the forum for political communic
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I whole heartedly agree....but there is one problem that didn't used to exist in the past and I dunno how it can be addressed....
But there is no decorum these days, and the whole audience seems to try to either shout down the politician, or other people t
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You know, phones were and still are a proprietary communication network that not everybody has access to and nobody is complaining that you can reach your elected leaders via the phone. How is this in any way tangibly different?
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The phone network is run by COMMON CARRIERS. That's the opposite of proprietary. Facebook is absolutely nothing like the phone network. In fact, the difference is so obvious that I question the sincerity and motivations of anyone who tries to conflate them!
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I'm wondering about the campaign contributions these consist of, if only some members of the ballot have access.
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I do. The fact is, Facebook is incredibly dangerous to democracy for reasons entirely unrelated to politicians using it to ignore other methods of constituent feedback. Take this article [vice.com] on how Facebook-based data-mining is enabling micro-targeted propaganda, for instance.
Incumbent advantage? (Score:2)
I"m wondering...is this legal?
Are they also making the service available to all election challengers, at both the primary and general election levels? If so, are they advertising this availability and addressing as broadly for challengers as they are for incumbents?
If not, they may find the service's entire cost treated as campaign contributions by the Federal Election Commission.
Oh... Goody. (Score:1)
And I am definitely not even remotely worried about Facebook getting more control over politics. Nope. Not even a little bit. This seems wonderful!
I guess constituents that don't use Facebook will miss out. Poor us. I regularly contact my representatives on issues and am surprised by how poorly some of them handle things like e-mail. Most of them aren't yet ready for the digital age (despite it having arrived decades ago).
I
How about... (Score:3)
And please, no, and no again, to the Bookface, where you're now forced to join in order to get anything useful from it. We don't need a government which forces citizens to join a private club in order to fully participate in government.
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Party: "Are you a member of our party?"
AC: "NO, I'M INDEPDENDENT, YOU BOTH ARE EQUALLY BAD!"
Party: "Okay... well do you want to participate in the primary?"
AC: "Yes!"
Party: "Okay... so you want to join the party?"
AC: "NEVER! I HATE YOU BOTH!"
Party: "Well, you'll have to sign this paper in order to participate."
AC: "TYRANNY!!!"
FFS, why is this so hard? There's no test to registering for a party, you don't need to tell your hipster friends you sold your
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That's an oxymoron. An enlightened state would allow every voter to vote in every primary, for all parties.
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That is definitely what will keep the rock from presidency. Can you imagine if Trump had at one point registered as say a democrat?!?!
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Because it's WRONG! The entire GODDAMN FUCKING CONCEPT of political parties is WRONG! It is absolutely asinine that those private corporations are even allowed to field candidates, or restrict which candidates may be fielded. Primary elections are fundamentally a misuse of public resources and should be abolished altogether, and all candidates should be required to meet the exact same requirements to get on the ballot, regardless of affiliation -- which itself should not even be
It's always nice... (Score:4, Funny)
...to let constituents choose the medium where they're most comfortable when being ignored.
Canned responses (Score:2)
Oh GOODIE! Another way to get generic canned responses that don't even remotely relate to the questions asked at hand... Just what I always wanted!
Message to elected officials: (Score:1)
Don't call us. We'll call you!
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Let's see here... (Score:3)
Hell No (Score:1)
No government entities should have any kind of social media presence at all. Once again, like Facebook attempting to replace the internet with the bubble they control, they are trying to butt into somewhere they're not needed, they don't belong, and shouldn't be welcome.
If not, soon Facebook will be choosing our elected officials by sharing their data with the candidates they prefer leaving competitors at such a disadvantage they'll have no chance.
Butt the F out.
Another reason. . . (Score:2)
not to be on Facebook. If their web site and mailings don't keep you informed, what makes you think anything will change on Facebook?
Besides, it's not as if they listen to plebes. Gotta give them cash before they deign to acknowledge your presence.
First Political Robocalls, Now FB (Score:2)
I shut out politics from FB since last year's election, and I don't want it back.
Automated Constituent Reply Software (Score:2)
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It's a nice gesture but (Score:1)
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I don't think Facebook knows the meaning of the word nice. There's always something in it for them. The trick is to find out what. Imagine if all government communication went through FB and if you wanted to talk to someone you needed to sign up with FB. Great way to get the holdouts to get on board.
Last week there was a city meeting about an infrastructure project that is going on and if you couldn't make it to the meeting they said you could watch it on FB. I didn't bother trying since I don't have an a
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So, FB will know exactly what happens (Score:2)
Knowledge is power,this should be clear to everybody by now.
What are we really giving up by providing tons of details about our life to big brother FB ?
On next election day, Zuck (or an equivalent drone) will have the "right message" to get elected and then... we are toasted.
Hopefully in Europe we will be so messed up that there will not be a Zuck here, maybe....