With more than 500 million users, Facebook is the world’s most popular social networking site. Now in its seventh year, the website continues to grow and develop. One of its latest goals, to streamline the process of political participation, represents a shift in how the site integrates itself into society.
To help inform voters for the 2010 British election, Facebook launched the Democracy UK page. It’s currently “liked” by more than 270,000 and saw its peak usage surpass 450,000 in early May.
One of the key figures in the creation of the page was Richard Allan, Facebook’s Head of Policy in Europe. Last week, I got a chance to talk with Allan, a former Member of Parliament who represented the Sheffield Hallam constituency from 1997 to 2005. Allan has short gray hair and light blue eyes. He wears a matching colored button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His eye-contact while speaking is impeccable; the mark of a politician.
According to Allan, the goal of the Democracy UK page was to encourage people to be more knowledgeable about the candidates and parties so they could make an informed choice on who to vote for.
The use of Facebook for political purposes is not a new idea. Barack Obama (2,000,000 supporters) and John McCain (600,000 supporters) used the website extensively in the 2008 presidential election. However, the Democracy UK page signals a change from past political efforts on the site.
Firstly, the site has taken on a role as an a politically uninterested news aggregator. Allan and his team, not an external candidate or think-tank, set up Democracy UK as a forum full of political information. In this way, the site aims to provide equal and immediate access to an array of political opinions for users to make their own decisions. They did this by aggregating news about the elections and issues from each political point of view into one news feed.
Second, the site became a producer of political information. Facebook started a dialogue among users, candidates and the media in which candidates answered popular policy questions posed on the Democracy UK page. With so many users, politicians are increasingly willing to cooperate with the site.
This phenomenon isn’t unique to the UK. In the United States, Facebook runs a page with a similar purpose called U.S. Politics on Facebook. While the page is significantly less “liked” (about 10,000 members) than its counterpart across the pond, it’s still connecting users to politicians via the media. Last Sunday, Meet The Press moderator David Gregory asked two Colorado senate candidates a question from the U.S. Politics page.
Both official politics pages changed how the media and politicians interact with Facebook. Even more change is in store.
For Allan, streamlining UK voter registration, especially youths, is a high-priority goal for the next election. He said registration efforts are limited because young people, especially those in university, don’t have stamps or printers readily accessible. He envisions Facebook users being able to click on a link supplied via the Democracy UK site and simply filling in data fields. Allan and his staff are currently working with the UK
Election Committee on making his registration plan a reality.
Because so many people use the site, Facebook has shown the ability to impact the actions of politicians, journalists and even the government. If the registration initiative is successfully implemented, this will represent an even higher level of societal integration by Facebook. Instead of its traditional role as reacting to policy changes, especially privacy laws, it will shape policy. While making UK voter registration paperless isn’t a huge policy change, it could be a sign of things to come.
Ray Whitehouse is a Medill junior currently studying abroad in London. He can be reached at [email protected].
