Facebook introduces election tools in Mexico

Not only gifs, cat memes, family photos or concert videos are shared on Facebook. There are also talks about politics and in order to evaluate them, the social network will launch the voter megaphone, a tool to locate the polling station and share if you already voted in Mexico's state elections on June 4.

Next Sunday, Facebook users in the State of Mexico, Coahuila and Nayarit will see a button with the words “Es el Día de las Elecciones” (It's election day) and when they click it they will be able to locate their polling station by being redirected to the page of the National Electoral Institute (INE) or share a status that they already voted.

The voter megaphone is one of the 5 tools implemented by Facebook which was also used in the presidential elections of the U.S., as well as in Argentina, Perú, and Ecuador, in addition to the Colombian peace referendum.

With 76 millions of Mexicans active each month on Facebook, the impact of the megaphone will be measured on these elections, said Diego Bassante, Manager of Latin American Politics and Government in Facebook.

Until now, the main subjects of conversation about the elections have been economy, education and health in Nayarit and Coahuila, and health, economy, and education in the State of Mexico. In the 3 states, security was placed as the fourth most discussed subject in political conversations on Facebook.

In comparison, Bassante said that in the U.S. 289 million people generated 10.000 million interactions about the presidential election. In Ecuador participated 4,6 million people in conversations about the election in 2017 and generated 61 million interactions such as likes, commentaries and sometimes sharing political content.

Argentina has been the country with the most political interactions until now. The presidential election of 2015, where Mauricio Macri won, participated 14,2 million people and generated 220 million interactions.

mr