Facebook Unveils New Tools To Help Elected Officials Reach Constituents (techcrunch.com)

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.

Comments

Oh sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS won't be abused at all. It will be unbiased and completely open! Honest! No foolin'!

Re:Oh sure...

[interkin3tic]

My GOP congressmen have been hiding from their constituents rather than answer questions about whether or not they're going to end our healthcare because boo Obama.

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.

Re:Oh sure...

[sycodon]

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.

Re:Oh sure...

[ArmoredDragon]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I say all the better. Facebook will finally help us minimize politicians listening to all those elderly conservative people who hold us back from making progress, because they won't know how to communicate with their elected officials over Facebook...

Re:selection bias for the good

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all those people with their life experience and years of knowledge... who wants to hear what THEIR input is?

Re:selection bias for the good

[ArmoredDragon]

I think the point is that it's mostly older people who use facebook. Younger generations mostly dislike facebook.

Is this legal??

[cayenne8]

I"m wondering...is this legal?

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...

Re:Is this legal??

[Anonymous Coward]

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, no fucking way.

we are still quite a ways off from obsoleting the offline and/or in person government. that can't happen until INTERNET ACCESS (and device ownership for that matter) IS A RIGHT and is guaranteed to all and is free from censorship and discrimination (of us *and* what we do); not an expensive privilege exploited by big businesses for fun and profits. the recent fcc ruling set us a decade or more here.

Re:Is this legal??

[nine-times]

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. Or perhaps it should remain legal, but should be frowned upon and discouraged.

I actually really like the idea of trying to experiment with public forums to find ways to give everyone a voice, where the voice of a lobbyist has no more power than that of an average citizen, and the force of a person's argument has a greater impact than the size of their pocket book. However, that raises a lot of problems, not the least of which being that the world is full of ignorant people and trolls, and it's difficult to moderate a forum like that without stifling free speech. To figure out how to tackle that problem, we don't need a company like Facebook, with its own agenda, making arbitrary decisions for us. We should have a say in developing our own democracy, not have it forced on us by the whoever happens to be the most influential software engineers (no matter how well-meaning they may be).

Re:Is this legal??

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Is this legal??

[rnturn]

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 job they're doing.

It's laughable to think that the solution to the disconnect between politicians and their constituents is some ridiculous social media platform. They already hide from their constituents--pulling stunts like holding "town halls" at 10:30 AM on a weekday in a diner that seats 50 and requiring tickets to even attend and then only responding to pre-screened questions--and Zuckerberg wants to make that even easier to do by letting them hide behind a web page. Facebook needs to learn that they aren't the solution to everything.

Re:Is this legal??

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I'm wondering about the campaign contributions these consist of, if only some members of the ballot have access.

Re:Is this legal??

[nine-times]

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 is through newspapers, and then later radio and television. Relying on mass media and lobbyists to advocate political positions is a big part of what has been concentrating polticial power among the wealthiest.

So why wouldn't we look for new ways to communicate? Given all the improvements to communication technology, why wouldn't we make use of that new technology to see if there are more equitable ways of making our voices heard? It'd be foolish not to try.

But clearly I wasn't saying that there was an easy fix. I was just saying that, given the impact communication has on politics, it'd also be foolish to allow one of these social networking sites to dictate how we communicate, just so they can make money from advertising.

Re: Is this legal??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Because this would be handing enormous power to Zuckerberg with no democratic accountability, oversight, right of audit over FB's data mining, algorithms, and who they've done deals with to do what.

Re: Is this legal??

[Anonymous Coward]

At least on the phone, you KNOW your Congress critter isn't taking your call. FB is probably also selling at both ends. AI powered PR management to expertly manipulate constituents based on their FB data; profile, likes, preferences, websitesâthey visit, friends, comments, etc.?

Re:Is this legal??

[rnturn]

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 communications (Google wouldn't be any better)--is just daft. I'd be much more interested in finding a way for more frequent face-to-face town halls without all the screwing around that politicians engage in nowadays to limit the audiences to friendly ones only. I can't see how FB or any other electronic forum manages to improve that. Maybe public campaign financing to eliminate the effect of huge campaign donations that result in the pay-to-play system we have today. We haven't really tried that yet.

Re:Is this legal??

[mrchaotica]

You know, phones were and still are a proprietary communication network

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!

Re:Is this legal??

[mrchaotica]

I don't mind this maybe being an additional venue...

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 on how Facebook-based data-mining is enabling micro-targeted propaganda, for instance.

Re:Is this legal??

[cayenne8]

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.

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 they disagree with in the audience.

I don't want just pre-screen questions either, but man..something needs to be done...because with all the shouters, or rage audience members, no one can really have any meaningful discourse with the elected official.

Oh... Goody.

[Ginguin]

Twitter and politics has been a beautiful picture of harmony and fairness...
And I am definitely not even remotely worried about Facebook getting more control over politics. Nope. Not even a little bit. This seems wonderful! /s

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 guess Facebook will bring in some new drama. How soon until someone gets arrested for posting a stupid comment on their Congress Critter's Facebook post?

How about...

[msauve]

Congresscritters should simply make themselves available via email (real email, not the web forms they want to call email). They all seem to think it's OK to email constituents from a "no reply" address - which only informs me they're not interested at all in hearing from constituents, only telling them what to think.

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.

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

how do you feel about primary elections that you have to pick a party to take part in?

Re:How about...

[interkin3tic]

AC: "I want to choose your party's candidate!"
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 soul to the GOP or democrats. It's a very short form. You don't even need to put a stamp on it! And immediately after the primary, you can un-register from that party to regain your precious political independence!

Re:How about...

[msauve]

I live in an enlightened, open primary state, you insensitive clod.

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

And should you decide you want a career in something political oriented then your enemies can use that record of the voting roles to shit on you. It's already happening to The Rock, who was found to be registered as a republican in florida. If he does run for pres and doesn't choose the republican party then this is gonna bite his ass. You should not have to register with anyone. Why are mixed votes bad?

Re:How about...

[interkin3tic]

MOD PARENT UP, THE ROCK'S POLITICAL CAREER IS DOOMED BECAUSE OF PARTY REGISTRATION!

That is definitely what will keep the rock from presidency. Can you imagine if Trump had at one point registered as say a democrat?!?!

Re:How about...

[mrchaotica]

FFS, why is this so hard?

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 disclosed on the candidate qualifying form and which should be prohibited from being listed on ballots.

Re:How about...

[mrchaotica]

I live in an enlightened, open primary state

That's an oxymoron. An enlightened state would allow every voter to vote in every primary, for all parties.

Re:How about...

[msauve]

Or, require the parties to pay for their own damn private "elections" instead of taxpayers paying to reduce the party choice to a single candidate. But it's a matter of degree, open primaries are better than those which require party membership.

It's always nice...

[Ghostworks]

...to let constituents choose the medium where they're most comfortable when being ignored.

Canned responses

[darkain]

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:

[fustakrakich]

Don't call us. We'll call you!

Speaking of routers

[Anonymous Coward]

where can I find info on what router (w/wi-fi) to check out? I'd consider router-only. Or w/should I?

James Comey

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll testify and Trump will be Umpeach.

Re:James Comey

[mark-t]

I'm pretty sure that if things go that route, it will turn into a situation where one it will come down to each party saying that the other party is lying, and the default judgement would be to dismiss the case on lack of evidence.

Let's see here...

[TheOuterLinux]

Facefarm helps politicians get elected and then once elected they help them network. Hmmmm....I wonder what that sounds like? Oliver Stone would be so proud.

Hell No

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

They've already created tools to help spy agencies reach us, so this is a logical step.

Another reason. . .

[quonset]

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.

The damn better make sure

[Anonymous Coward]

All comments to them are public.

They ARE tools

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't use something facebook made for anything I actually care about in my life. They can get bent.

First Political Robocalls, Now FB

[AnalogDiehard]

It is bad enough that my phone is littered with political robocalls. Do I want those same canned messages reaching my Facebook newsfeed? Every day? NO THANK YOU!

I shut out politics from FB since last year's election, and I don't want it back.

Automated Constituent Reply Software

[JBMcB]

Powered by Watson(tm)

no, use old fashioned snail mail

[Anonymous Coward]

The traditional way of contacting a congressman is to write him/her a letter by hand. Congressmen get more than enough letters, so I hope they ignore email, and all that other stuff.

It's a nice gesture but

[Neuronwelder]

I don't think the majority wants to connect with their constituents in the first place!! (It' like putting a band-aid on a broken leg)

Re:It's a nice gesture but

[CanadianMacFan]

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 account. It would have been nice to see what was going on with the project but I wasn't curious enough to give away my privacy. But what happens later on when more important stuff is only available through FB? I hope that someone writes a law that says FB must not require an account and can't create hooks in order to track you while interacting with those services on FB but I doubt it.

Re:It's a nice gesture but

[Neuronwelder]

Nice idea, but I seriously doubt it's gonna happen. They make too much money data mining people. :(

So, FB will know exactly what happens

[what about]

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....

No-good Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

... help officials connect with their constituents ...

What good will that bring US voters? Letting congress-critters know that you don't hate socialism and don't believe WMDs exist in Iran will have every conservative and right-wing super-PAC trying to brainwash you into 'might is right' American exceptionalism and other flawed ideologies.

Incumbent advantage?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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.