Facebook launched its new "Community Actions" feature on Jan. 21. It's a way for users to support a cause or movement and get their voices heard in their communities.
This feature was designed to help users advocate for change. They can create a petition and notify relevant local and national elected officials and government agencies of actions they would like to see happen. The goal is to get Facebook friends to click on the "Support" button, so the petition goes viral. Supporters of petitions can discuss the topic, leave comments, create fundraisers and other events.
"Social media has this enormous network reach and it has this sort of contagious effect," said Dr. S. Shyam Sundar, a professor of Media Effects at Penn State and co-director of Media Effects Research Laboratory. "Some things become viral that unexpectedly take a lot of traction, and that's really what the charm of social media is uh as opposed to kind of door to door petitioning."
The number of supporters behind a "Community Action" is displayed, but users can only see the names of those they are friends with or that are Pages or Public Figures.
Facebook already has assisted in the organization of big events, such as the first Women's March that was initially organized on the site in 2016. In recent years, the site has launched a number of features designed to get people more involved.
However, the concern many professionals have is that -- as with any online tool designed for positive expression and connectivity -- it can be divisive and promote misinformation.
"Social media really (acts) as kind of amplifiers, giving a pulpit for people to stand on and broadcast their point of view," Dr. Sundar said. "But it can also be used as sort of a bully pulpit uh for negative purposes so it's a double-edged sword."
The Borough of State College said it monitors its social media accounts, using them as a tool to address their residents' concerns.
"This Facebook Actions feature is a way to shed light on an issue, maybe something that the borough is not aware of or elected officials aren't aware of but it's not the official way to go about it as laid out in our home rule charter," said Douglas Shontz, the borough's Communication Specialist.
Dr. Sundar believes this feature is still a great example of the power in social media and the strength in numbers.
"These kinds of initiatives are really realizing the vision of social media to give each individual user a sense of agency so that they can actually start a petition," he said.
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