> Community Actions could unite neighbors to request change from their local and national elected officials and government agencies. But it could also provide vocal interest groups a bully pulpit from which to pressure politicians and bureaucrats with their fringe agendas.
Or, hot take here, Facebook really doesn't care too much what the petitions are about, but is mostly interested in gathering more data on its users' political beliefs so they can allow domestic and foreign campaign spending groups to better target advertisements meant to change or reinforce those beliefs (or suppress civic participation of those with such beliefs) and increase FB's total share of campaign-related ad spend.
Bingo. I'm going to have a really hard time taking any new development coming out of Facebook as genuine, honest or non-privacy invasive. I simply do not foresee my opinion of Facebook, Zuckerberg or anyone still working there changing radically in the near future.
The immediate solution to this (assuming the feature stays) seems to be a stricter sign-up / verification process that ties your account closer to your real-world identity before you can use political features like this, to make bots and fake accounts more difficult to create and/or influence politics through these direct lines.
Tinfoil hat:
Fortunately (or unfortunately), that's also a step closer towards (but not at, yet) the verification necessary to start, I don't know, actually voting through Facebook. I wonder if giving bots a direct line to local politics would actually result in people/lawmakers _begging_ more verifiability to Facebook accounts, instead of Facebook trying to implement such a process/feature without the inevitable backlash they'd no doubt get if they said "you can now link your social security number to Facebook!". Being verified as a real human on Facebook ultimately helps Facebook get closer to a potential goal of giving petitions (or votes) on Facebook more weight.
Or, hot take here, Facebook really doesn't care too much what the petitions are about, but is mostly interested in gathering more data on its users' political beliefs so they can allow domestic and foreign campaign spending groups to better target advertisements meant to change or reinforce those beliefs (or suppress civic participation of those with such beliefs) and increase FB's total share of campaign-related ad spend.