There is an interesting new feature on Facebook, it checks your age and if you are over eighteen, it will ask you if you have gone out to vote. The question may seem simple, but it also implies a sense of civic duty (if you have not voted) or a sense of accomplishment (if you already did). The notice does not come with any other form of political symbolism and does not tell or discourage people to vote one way or the other.
Of course, from a more paranoid point of view, there is also the possibility that this is another one of Facebook’s data mining schemes which will help them determine if you really care about politics or not.
Anyway, going back to the button, it also posts the message on your status in order to help your friends remember that they too should practice their right of suffrage.
In many ways, the elections are finally underway and in a matter of time, we will find out if the previous mock polls held in Facebook will also have the same results as the real world. Of course, there is also the fact that not everyone in the UK has access to Facebook –and there are certain social groups that by default would not or cannot have a Facebook account; since these populations are not calculated for in the mock polls, it is still hard to determine which way things will go.
This is not the first time that Facebook has been involved in the political events of a country, but this is the first time that it is able to make a fully neutral stand during the transitional state of elections. It would not be surprising to have the notion that in the future, Facebook might even be able to hold the actual elections online.
Tags: data-mining, election-polls, Facebook, general-election, Social-networking