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Facebook is giving its users a chance to ask questions to a few political leaders ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections. The social network has launched ‘Talks Live’, a platform where its Indian users would be able to directly ask questions to some key national and regional political leaders like Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav about their electoral agenda and ideas of governance in India.
The latest initiative has been launched in partnership with newslaundry.com and NDTV. Explaining the idea behind this initiative, Facebook said in a statement, “Today, we have over 93 million people in India engaging actively every month on Facebook. Social engagement is at the core of our platform. In politics and elections, it is also key to influencing voting behaviours and organising opinion,” said Facebook Public Policy Director (India & South Asia) Ankhi Das said in a statement.
Facebook Talks Live will feature BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi as its first leader on March 3rd. The initiative is scheduled for over a period of six days i.e. till 8th March. Users can put up their questions on Facebook Talks Live Page. Eminent journalist and Editor in Chief, NewsLaundry Madhu Trehan will moderate the session by ask questions on behalf of Facebook users, which would also be live-streamed on the website besides being broadcast on a private television channel.
In the announcement post,Das quoted a study of IRIS Knowledge Foundation, released last year, which found that 150 constituencies across India could come under the impact of the Facebook vote. Social media is being used as an effective tool by most political parties to reach out to voters, and especially to connect with the youth in the country ahead of the 16th Lok Sabha elections. A latest report from IAMAI and IMRB touted that social media influence may swing 3-4 percent votes.
The latest initiative by Facebook is somewhat similar to Google’s Hangouts which has been used by various Government officials and politicians in past year. Last month Facebook had rolled out two compiled lists; Indian Political Parties and Indian Political leaders on Facebook.
Source: NDTV Gadgets
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