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

Posted by BeauHD on from the elected-officials-only dept.

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.

5 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Is this legal?? by cayenne8 · · Score: 2
    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...

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Is this legal?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  2. How about... by msauve · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  3. It's always nice... by Ghostworks · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  4. Let's see here... by TheOuterLinux · · Score: 2

    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.