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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has always been a platform about sharing ideas and beliefs with friends, but now it is taking a more political stance. In a recent manifesto by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the social media giant will be focusing on “developing the social infrastructure for community.”
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Facebook will launch a service called Town Hall, which will inform users who their local elected officials are as well as provide advice on how to reach out to these individuals. The service also will remind users to vote in local elections and connect with campaigns. Of course this service will be nonpartisan.
Town Hall will allow users to follow their local representatives’ activity on the site and be privy to their updates.
Ultimately the idea behind the Facebook platform as a whole is to connect people, so Town Hall is hardly a stretch with all the political opinions currently shared on Facebook. The overriding thought is that this platform will engage more of the population in the political scene.
Although this platform is inherently political, keep in mind that it will not directly address the spread of fake news.
Facebook was concerned in the past with the dissemination of fake news that was prevalent throughout the most recent presidential election, and the social media giant was even accused of spreading the fake news. By plugging in to the political scene even more, Facebook is attempting to cull fake news and provide users an accurate news flow.
Excluding Tuesday’s move, Facebook has outperformed the broad markets, with the stock up 22% year to date. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is actually up 23%.
Shares of Facebook were last seen up 0.7% at $141.30 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $160.32 and a 52-week trading range of $106.31 to $142.31.
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