The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Politics Facebook Media

Facebook adds Town Hall feature to connect users with US government officials

Author

By Haley Velasco, Freelance journalist

March 17, 2017 | 3 min read

Facebook has added a feature that will connect American users more easily with the US government, dubbing it 'Town Hall'.

Facebook adds Town Hall feature to connect users with government officials

Facebook adds Town Hall feature to connect users with government officials

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, has historically been a supporter of philanthropy and doing good in the world. In February, the tech giant wrote a lengthy piece where he questioned: “are we building the world we all want?” Throughout that piece, Zuckerberg enumerated that he was looking to increase civic engagement among Facebook's nearly 2 billion users.

As a platform, the Facebook team has rolled out the “Town Hall” feature to get users involved with their government representatives on a local, state and federal level.

"Town Hall is part of our ongoing work to support civic engagement on Election Day and every day," Facebook said in a statement. "It is a dedicated space for people who want to learn about and participate in the political process."

On a mobile phone, you can find it in the Apps tab or the “Explore” section on the web version of the social platform. It prompts users to add an address — which Facebook claims is private — which will then populate representatives from the state and federal levels, including President Trump and Vice President Pence. For each representative, you can follow them via Facebook or contact them via phone, email or their personal pages.

At the top of the page, it also notes how many of your friends have connected with their representatives on Facebook.

This isn’t Facebook’s first foray into politics. During the election, Facebook drove “substantial increases” in voter registration across the country as it set out to remind people to vote in the US election.

The social network placed a 17-word reminder atop the News Feeds of users who were 18 years old and over, in 32 states plus Washington D.C., urging them to register to vote. The reminder said, “Are you registered to vote? Register now to make sure you have a voice in the election.”

Overall, all of the 16 states that were tracked witnessed an increase in total online voter registration activity during the four days, according to the Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Politics Facebook Media

More from Politics

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +