The Facebook Blog

With just a day left before the closely watched general election in Britain, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats was the winner of a mock election held on Facebook, with 42 percent of the vote. David Cameron of the Conservative Party came second with 31 percent, while Gordon Brown of the Labour Party finished in third with 27 percent.

A total of 463,000 votes were cast in a home page polling ad displayed to people in the UK who visited Facebook over the bank holiday. The result was not intended to represent the voting population of the UK, but... be a snapshot of the opinions of those who responded.

The mock election was just one in a series of UK election activities happening for the first time on Facebook. At the time of the last British election in 2005, Facebook wasn't available to most people in the UK, while other social networking sites and services were in their infancy.

In 2010, however, Facebook has more people in the UK using it than the total number of votes cast in the last general election. In recent weeks one question has been asked by almost everybody in Britain: What would the impact of the online world be on the political views of the British public?

We'll soon find out how closely the Facebook mock election matches the real one, but since the election was called on April 6, we already have seen people in the UK and around the world flock to Facebook and other sites to get informed, share their opinions and even rate the candidates' debate performances.

To help people join the debate, we launched Democracy UK on Facebook. This Page, which has more than 160,000 people connected to it, has posted a constant stream of serious and light-hearted news and discussion, including question-and-answer sessions with notable journalists providing a range of opinions. Democracy UK also hosted two applications—VoteMatch and My Vote Advisor—to help people determine which party and policies they might most closely align with.

Rating the Debates

While televised debates between political candidates are commonplace elsewhere in the world, this year saw Britain's first experience of them. The TV debates were an historic moment. More than 80,000 people logged on to use ITV's Livestream, which enabled people to post updates alongside the live online streaming of the debate on the ITV website, while thousands of additional people did the same on the Sky News website.

UK broadcasters, though, had restrictions on the type of audience reaction they could show during debates. So we gave people an opportunity on the Democracy UK on Facebook Page to interact with each other and discuss the debates while also giving real-time feedback on the performance of the party leaders. Through the Rate the Debate application, people could participate in a real time "dial test," clicking on a moving dial to indicate their feelings about what was being said at that moment in time and seeing aggregated results (as shown below).



In addition, in partnership with YouTube, Facebook crowdsourced questions from potential voters that were then put to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Questions were sourced using an application hosted at Democracy UK on Facebook and on YouTube's dedicated election channel.

The result? Party leaders answered the most popular questions based on more than 180,000 votes on the more than 5,300 questions submitted. See the answers by clicking the "Digital Debate" tab on Democracy UK.

Getting Out the Vote

In Britain voters had to be registered by April 20. Research suggested that about 3.5 million people who were eligible to vote in England and Wales were not registered. In response, Facebook and the Electoral Commission worked together to create a new application, enabling the 23 million people using Facebook in the UK to download a personalised voter registration form. The effort increased voter registrations by thousands in a matter of days.

Whether you're in the UK or not, you can follow tomorrow's election by liking the Democracy UK on Facebook Page for more updates and joining future election debates for your country.


Richard, Facebook's director of policy in Europe, is a recovering politician.

Improving safety online is a group effort. It requires diligence from everyone who's online or on Facebook—whether by reporting abusive behavior or making sure your account and passwords are secure. At Facebook, we think about our role the same way. We must work with a diverse set of experts and organizations devoted to online safety in order to bring you the best safety resources on Facebook.

We've been following this collaborative approach to safety for years, and today we took another step by launching a global Safety Advisory Board. This... group of five leading Internet safety organizations from North America and Europe will consult with us on online safety issues. One of our first projects together will be to overhaul the safety information that's available to you from the Facebook Help Center so that the resources are more comprehensive and include content that's specifically tailored to the needs of parents, teachers and teens.

We're grateful for the support of such a well-respected group of organizations in our latest effort. The initial members of the Safety Advisory Board are Childnet International, The Family Online Safety Institute, Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely and WiredSafety. Over time, we will consider adding additional members to the Safety Advisory Board as we identify good candidates and seek to broaden its international representation.

You can learn more about these organizations and our Safety Advisory Board by reading today's announcement here.

The Safety Advisory Board is just one step we've taken—and will continue to take—to promote a safer environment on Facebook. Just last week, we partnered with MTV on the A Thin Line campaign to educate people about digital abuse. A few weeks ago, the New York Attorney General's office cited Facebook's help in identifying and disabling the accounts of registered sex offenders. We worked with the BBC in November on their Bullyproof campaign in the UK. We also regularly invite organizations like the National Crime Prevention Council to share safety tips with you on this blog, and we provide updates on new safety approaches we're taking on the site to make reporting abuse easier.

As we now work with the Safety Advisory Board, you can expect to see more safety resources on this blog and in our Help Center in the months to come. Only by working together can all of us stay safe online.


Richard, Facebook's director of European public policy, is doing his part for online safety.

In October, we called attention to National Crime Prevention Month in the United States to raise awareness about cyberbullying. This week is National Anti-Bullying Week in the United Kingdom, and we've teamed up with media outlets BBC Radio 1, BBC 1Xtra, and other sites like Bebo, Habbo, MSN, MySpace and YouTube to address this important issue again. While only a small fraction of people will ever experience abusive behavior on Facebook, we're committed to promoting an environment where everyone can connect and share comfortably.

For more... information on how to handle bullies, check out the BBC's new Facebook Page and website. You can show your support for the "bullyproof" movement and receive a free badge to post on your Wall or send to a friend.

We want to ensure that people understand how to address cyberbullying if it occurs on Facebook, so here are some useful tips from our Help Center:

Accept Friend Requests from People You Know
In order to prevent harassment from strangers, be careful to accept friend requests only from people you know in real life and remember to report any messages or profiles that look suspicious. Facebook is based on a real-name culture, and fake profiles are regularly disabled when they're reported to us. Only confirmed friends can post to your Wall or contact you via Facebook Chat, so if you're worried that someone will make inappropriate posts or send offensive messages, just ignore that person's friend request.

Use the Block Feature
A block prevents specific people from viewing your profile. When you use this feature, any ties you currently have with them will be broken, and they won't be able to contact you through Facebook. You can block another user by listing his or her name in the "Block People" box at the bottom of your Privacy Settings page.

Report Abusive Behavior
The most efficient way to report abuse is to do it in the same place it occurs on Facebook. For example, if you receive a harassing message in your Inbox from someone who is not your Facebook friend, you can report it by clicking on the "Report" link next to the sender's name as you are reading the message. If you receive an harassing message from a Facebook friend, you should remove that person as a friend and report the message. Reporting a message will automatically add the sender to your Block list. You can also use the "Report/Block person" link that appears at the bottom of the abusive user's profile. Reports are confidential and the user being reported does not know about the report. After a report is submitted, we will investigate the issue and make a determination as to whether or not the content should remain on the site based on our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Customize Your Privacy Settings
Facebook offers granular privacy settings that allow you to customize what information you share and with whom. By customizing the settings on the Privacy Settings page, you can control who views your information, dictate who can find you in searches, and see your Wall, profile and photos, among other things.

Respond to Abusers in the Right Way
Cyberbullies often seek a reaction from the people they harass. When they fail to get one, they often will give up. Rather than respond to a bully via an Inbox message, a Wall post or Facebook Chat, you can delete offensive posts from your Wall or messages from your Inbox and then use the Block or Report functions to resolve the issue. To delete an offensive Wall post, select the "Remove" button that appears in the upper right-hand corner. To delete a message from Inbox, simply click the "Delete" button at the top of the message. Only confirmed friends can post to your Wall or send you a message through Chat. If you are receiving posts and Chat messages you don't like, you should consider removing the sender from your friends list.

Protecting our users is a top priority for Facebook, and we're proud to be a part of this year's Anti-Bullying Week efforts in the UK.


Richard, Facebook's European Director of Public Policy, is a fan of the BBC bullyproof Page on Facebook.