Facebook Launches 'Town Hall' For Contacting Government Reps, Adds Local Election Reminders (techcrunch.com)

Facebook has officially launched their "Town Hall" feature that allows users to locate, follow and contact their local, state and federal government representatives. The social media company also announced that they will be launching local election reminders in an effort to get more users to vote in state, county, and municipal elections. TechCrunch reports: The feature was recently made available in the "More" menu on mobile and on desktop to a subset of users. When you launch it, you would be presented with a list of reps at the local, state and federal level, and you could click to visit their Facebook page or send them a message, call them, or email. Not all reps offer their contact information via Facebook, however. And Facebook doesn't yet pull in the missing phone numbers or emails from off-site sources, like official government websites, for example. The company tell us that's something it wants to address in time, though. Today, Town Hall is available to all U.S. Facebook users and some of its features will now be integrated in the News Feed. If you like or comment on a post made by one of your elected officials, a new feature below the comments will invite you to call, message or email the rep. After doing so, users will then be prompted to share a post saying that they contacted the rep, as a means of encouraging their friends to do the same. Facebook says that this Contact Your Rep post is not shown to everyone, but only to those who are also already engaging with an elected official's post, through a like or comment. Additionally, Facebook says it will now offer Election Reminders for local elections. The new, local election reminders will appear for all state, county, and municipal elections in the U.S. in areas with a population of over 10,000 people, and will include both primaries and general elections.

Comments

"We shouldn't tell people there's an election."

[kronix1986]

Let's be honest - the argument against this is, "It's unfair, because telling people there's an election coming up will help the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party."

In an age when Republicans are hell-bent on making it difficult for Democratic voters to actually cast a ballot, by...

* Cutting voting hours on election day
* Cutting early voting
* Shutting down poll booths in heavily Democrat areas e.g. Indian reservations
* Requiring voter ID in Democrat-leaning districts but not Republican-leaning districts
* Falsely telling ethnic minorities they need a photo ID to vote when there is no such requirement in the state ...Facebook reminding people about local/city/state/national elections is a public service.

Re:"We shouldn't tell people there's an election."

[misexistentialist]

You should start by being honest. It's about telling people who don't pay taxes that they can get away with taking from those who do.

Re:"We shouldn't tell people there's an election."

[kronix1986]

We should be grateful that you're at least honest in your desire to disenfranchise Democratic voters - Republican politicians aren't as candid, instead opting to blame non-existent polling day voter fraud or "lack of demand" in Democratic districts.

I see from your other post you think reminding people to vote is "socialism" - I hope you don't make use of publicly funded roads, bridges, hospitals, schools or the internet, all of which are cornerstones of socialism.

The stupidity of the alt-right never ceases to amaze. They post rants railing against socialism on the *internet*...which was designed and built by government, paid for by tax dollars. They also worship the military, but can't seem to comprehend that a publicly funded military where everybody gets "coverage" is socialist.

Is it any wonder these people are shooting up pizza parlours?

Re:Ulterior motive

[Gravis Zero]

I worry that facebook will use this to try to manipulate elections

Oh come on. We have a mango-in-chief leading the government, do you really think having fewer easily misled/dimwitted/single-issue voters participating in politics would make things worse?

History will repeat

[s.petry]

Facebook and Google already did that, trying to censor Republican concerns and promoting Hillary and the Progressive movement. I have zero faith that they will change their behavior, and believe they are part of the same leftist agenda as most media in the US.

I'll also add that today most young people are not taught about the US Constitution or History in general that does not favor progressivism. They are not trained in rhetoric, and not trained in the Socratic method. (You may be, but the generalization is correct that a large percentage is not). This means that they fall prey to propaganda much easier than someone older who has some ability to recognize and ignore the propaganda. The least educated among us are not necessarily the best people to vote. Those type of person vote one way, and it is never Conservative/Republican.