Facebook’s New Feature Allows Users to Endorse Politicians

Facebook has announced a new feature that allows for their billion users to endorse a political candidate.

Hours before the last Presidential Debate between Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, Facebook has allowed their users endorse a certain politician.

Any politician with a Facebook page can now enable an “Endorse” button. The new feature extends not only to men and women running for president of the United States but, also U.S. senators, representatives, state representatives, and city council members.

The new “Endorse” button allows for politicians to use your endorsement and promote your message on Facebook for anyone to see. If you keep it visible to only your Facebook friends, it will show up as a post on your Facebook page and will become visible on your friends’ news feeds. In addition, your friends will be able to see your endorsements on your Facebook page.

This is the latest move by Facebook to add new features to the social media platform. The company has worked with the Ad Council to encourage people to vote. But, most importantly the new feature can allow for the politicians to use Facebook endorsements as a way to reach undecided voters.

This news comes after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defend Peter Theil’s place on the company’s board. Peter Thiel is a venture capitalist and hedge fund manager. Thiel founded PayPal alongside Max Levchin and Elon Musk. In addition, Thiel was one of the first outside investors in Facebook, with 10.2% stake in 2004 and now sits in the company’s board of directors. In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg wrote that keeping Theil, a known supporter of Donald Trump, helps increase the company’s diversity.

“I want to quickly address the questions and concerns about Peter Thiel as a board member and Trump supporter,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook. “We can’t create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate. There are many reasons a person might support Trump that does not involve racism, sexism, xenophobia or accepting sexual assault.”