Facebook Political Influence under a Microscope

As the political temperature and the presidential campaign heats up in the United States, Facebook Inc is going out of its way to stay as the neutral; as the growing urgent matter for the fast social network as evidence of as its power continuously emerge. The recent studies shown that the social site has an extraordinary influence. A research which is conduct and scheduled to published in August in the Journal of Communication which find that when the one person tagged their friends on Facebook in the voting reminders, the turnout of people increased by 15% to 24%.

During the primary election of the United State presidentship the Facebook reminder will inform the people when the voting registration deadline was approaching and offered a link which helps to produce the almost 650,000 voters who registered their votes in the California state alone, according the Secretary State Alex Padilla. In the United Kingdom the Facebook reminder a day before the deadline to register their vote on whether the UK should exit or stay in the European Union which leads to 186,000 people register their vote, according the UK officials.

Facebook is enthusiastic to show that its political influence is limited it just carrying neutral activities such as encouraging voting. This week the company has released some of guidelines which oversee all its important News Feed- the places where most people see posts on the Facebook and pushed back hard next to the recent allegations of showing political biasness in its “Trending Topics” section.

In the meanwhile the Facebook holds its role as the “new town hall” for hosting events, for politics and the helping the candidates the effective leverage their platforms. Facebook global and political outreach director Katie Harbath said her term helps candidate to providing advice and answering their questions such as how to increase appointment on their page and how to use the Facebook live.

Still, there are concerns about the role of Facebook in shaping the political attitude which are doubtful to grow less. Some people complain about the voter registration drives. For example, Julian Assange the Wiki leaks founder alleged that Facebook and Google were trying to support a “remain” vote in the British referendum on membership of EU by encouraging voting, which states that the media users are pro-Europe and disproportionately youthful.

The most common complaint about the Facebook and the other social media, they serve as the sound hall of ideas and the beliefs, as the users will decide which pages and people they will follow to customize their News Feed. A study in showed that the user of Facebook tended to click and interact on content what was similar to their ideological views.

Tom Steinberg the Facebook customer wrote in a post this week which quickly followed on Twitter that he actively looked for people celebrating the Britain vote to exit the EU, but he could not find any one on the Facebook. He added that he was in favour of the Britain remains in the EU, but it advice to tech leaders to do something more to address the sound chamber on the social networks. We are living in countries where one half doesn’t know anything about the other at all.