The Facebook Blog

Active Duty

Iraq, where he is stationed as a transportation movement specialist with the 840th Transportation Battalion. The photos are among the dozens he receives from his wife, Kristin, who prints them out from friends' Facebook profiles and includes them in care packages to Charles.

Charles and Kristin were married on Dec. 28, 2009, but didn't have much time to enjoy wedded bliss. Only a few weeks later, his unit was deployed to Iraq to assist with the draw-down operation. To bridge the gap formed by thousands of miles, the young couple keeps in touch through Facebook Chat and Inbox messages. Kristin says she misses her husband every day, but "our communication has made this deployment a little easier."

In addition to connecting with his wife, family and friends, Charles also has found Facebook to be helpful while he's overseas.

"A team of mine got separated on a base in Iraq," wrote Charles in an email. "I went to a (military-operated) cafe, hopped on Facebook, and saw (that) my squad leader was online. I messaged him our location, and within 10 minutes we were regrouped."

A Gold Star Wife

Katie and James on their wedding day.

While many military families use Facebook to communicate with their loved ones abroad, others turn to it as a source of support after the loss of a soldier. Katie Hubbard, the 26-year old widow to Command Sgt. Maj. James W. Hubbard Jr., has benefited greatly from the comfort she has received from Facebook friends since her husband's death.

James was an active military serviceman from October 1972 to September 1980, then he joined the Army Reserves. After a deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, James returned home in 2005, when he met Katie. The pair were married in February 2007, before James was briefly deployed again to Kosovo. Soon after returning stateside, he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia that apparently stemmed from uranium exposure during his tour of duty in Iraq. Sadly, despite immediate treatment, James passed away on May 21, 2009.

Among the friends Katie connects with on Facebook are fellow Gold Star Wives, the widows of deceased military members. Though she has never met many of the women face-to-face, their shared grief builds a trusting and understanding community. Katie cites one friend in particular, Glenda, as an inspirational figure. Though widowed long ago when her husband died in the Vietnam War, Glenda has helped Katie find support.

"I've learned a lot from our conversations," says Katie, "and even though we were widowed almost 41 years apart and in different circumstances, the grief is so similar."

Katie and Glenda plan to meet for the first time this weekend, when they will commemorate Memorial Day with a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Band of Brothers

Luis Rodriguez is immensely proud of his older brother, Shak Wak. A highly decorated first sergeant, Shak has seen 18 years of near constant combat, first with the U.S. Marines and now with the U.S. Army. He is, as Luis wrote, "a soldier's soldier." Shak is currently on his fifth tour of duty in Iraq, but unlike previous deployments, this is the first he has undertaken with an important tool: a Facebook account.

Luis convinced his brother to sign up on Facebook so they could communicate more easily while he is overseas. Now, they share pictures and videos of family events to keep Shak in touch with home.

Brothers Shak and Luis

Shak is careful to follow the military's security rules, known as OPSEC guidelines, so he doesn't share many details, but Luis says the little updates mean the world to him and his family. Luis particularly loves getting real-time information from his brother on Facebook Chat.

"In that instant, I know he is OK, back at the (base) and probably getting some rest and some food," Luis said.

Luis, a writer, fondly remembers crafting a poem dedicated to Shak, then posting it as a note on Facebook and tagging his brother.

"Within hours, he had read and responded to it," Luis recalled. "Knowing that I can reach out and speak to him like that is priceless."


Sara, an intern on the communications team, is so grateful to all the men and women serving her country.

As you may have seen here earlier in the week, we announced simplified privacy controls in response to your feedback. These new settings are continuing to roll-out and they should be live to everyone in a week or so.

Learn About the New Settings
To help you use the new features and learn more about controlling your information on Facebook, we are launching a series of video tutorials on our official Facebook Page and other places on the site.

...The first video went live today and provides an overview of how privacy controls work on Facebook. You can watch it below or on our official page. To stay updated on future videos, be sure to like our page and you'll see new videos as we post them.



Remember, your privacy settings themselves have not changed but we encourage you to learn more about the simplified controls and give them a try. If you have questions or other feedback the new controls or generally about privacy on Facebook, please let us know at http://www.facebook.com/privacyfeedback.

Caitlin, on the marketing team, is mastering the art of voice-dubbing.

After yesterday's announcement of simplified privacy controls, we wanted to share more details about what you can expect and the updated resources we've launched to help you understand privacy on Facebook.

Here's a recap of some of the ways we've simplified the settings:

• Reduced the number of settings required to make all information private from nearly 50 to less than 15.


• Introduced presets that cover 18 individual settings for sharing with one single control—two clicks to control what had been more than 100 different options.


• Consolidated 10 settings on three separate pages into seven settings on one page.


• Reduced the number of separate pages in the privacy settings from 13 to eight.

The new controls are launching gradually, and many of you may not see them on your privacy settings page yet. Launching something to hundreds of millions of people around the world is a complex task and we want to make sure we do it right. But the redesigned privacy settings page is on its way, and we're working hard to make sure they'll be available to everyone within the next week.

Remember, your privacy settings themselves have not changed. We're just excited to offer new ways for you to control your information.

We want to make sure you know when the new controls are available to you, so once they are, you'll be notified with an announcement on your homepage similar to this one:



Facebook is all about sharing, and our privacy controls are built around allowing you to control how you share on Facebook. After a series of recent product launches, we heard from many of you that our controls had become too complicated.

We agreed and have revamped the privacy settings, starting with a new main page where, in a couple clicks, you can set all of the content you share to everyone, friends of your friends or just your friends. This new single setting, though, is just one of the new ways to control what you share.

A new privacy guide

The announcement on your homepage links to a new comprehensive privacy guide to help you learn more details about these new controls. You can always find the privacy guide by clicking the "Privacy" link that appears at the bottom of every page on Facebook.

Our new privacy guide further details the four key sections of the new privacy settings page:

1. One simple control for sharing: Control who can see all the content you post on a day-to-day basis, such as status updates, photos and videos, as well as content others share about you. In this single control, you can set content to everyone, friends of friends or friends only. You can keep our recommended settings, or customize the settings if you prefer more granular controls for different types of content.


2. Basic directory information: We've reduced the amount of information that must be visible. Certain information is visible to everyone because it's essential to helping people find and connect with you on Facebook: your name, profile picture, gender and networks. We suggest setting other basic information like hometown and interests open to everyone so you can connect with friends and people who share things in common with you. All the settings in this section, such as your friend list and the Pages you've connected to, have full privacy controls.


3. Applications and websites: This section controls what information is shared with websites and applications, including search engines. You can view your applications, remove any you don't want to use, or turn off platform completely. This section also includes the settings for Instant Personalization on our three partner sites.


4. Block lists: This section lets you block people from interacting with you or seeing your information on Facebook. It also offers a way for you to block applications.

Most importantly, when the new privacy settings page is live for you, we hope you'll play around with the settings and find the ones that are right for you.

As always, we'd love to know what you think. Share your feedback at www.facebook.com/privacyfeedback, and we'll be following up with answers to some of your common questions in future posts.


Ana, a Facebook product marketing manager, is heading to her college reunion this weekend.

On Sunday, millions of people in Colombia will decide their country's political future by electing a new president. Some, like me, will submit ballots from overseas. If neither candidate gets more than 51 percent of the vote, the winner will be decided by a run-off election.

Regardless of who wins, what will make this election stand out in Colombia's history is that the candidates have found a new place to campaign: the Internet.

Facebook is one battleground where candidates are unleashing their political arsenals to lure voters. Thousands of... Colombians are closely following the elections through the candidates' Facebook Pages. Presidential candidates that have already amassed more than 100,000 connections on Facebook include Gustavo Petro, Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus.

Walls and discussion forums on Facebook offer a place for candidates to post campaign news, photos, videos and media coverage. More importantly, supporters are using Facebook to organize rallies and assemblies.

"The presidential campaigns in Colombia are trying to emulate some of the 'Obama phenomenon' practices that have caught the attention of so many political scientists and electoral experts around the world," says Victor Solano, a veteran Colombian journalist and new media specialist. "Facebook has been very important for the presidential campaign because it has allowed the creation of communities, debate in forums, the connection of users, and has created different applications that attract potential voters."

As someone who grew up in Colombia and now works at Facebook in the U.S., it's been fascinating to see how the political system in my home country has evolved. Unlike in past elections, this time there are remarkable differences in the candidates' political agendas and they are close in the opinion polls. Citizens like me are excited to have a stake in Colombia's political future.

Of course, the political, social and economic conditions of Colombia are very different to those of the United States. Going virtual may seem like a crazy idea, considering that only about 3.2 million Colombians have Internet access, or about 7 percent of the population, according to the Communications Secretary of Colombia.

Nonetheless, technology is changing the political landscape, encouraging more people to vote and helping them make informed decisions. Colombia's electoral authorities expect that more than 3 million new voters will participate in this election, in addition to the almost 30 million previously registered.

Because of Facebook, candidates are now closer than ever to their supporters and have a new medium to get their message out. But they're now also under a giant magnifying glass and are open to more scrutiny. A new political arena has emerged in Colombia that has taken the presidential candidates by surprise.

The battle to get more users to press the "Like" button continues. But one question still remains: How many of these people will take their virtual support to the voting booth on election day? We'll have to wait a couple more days to find out. Whatever the outcome, social media has changed the face of campaigning in Colombia and is now part of its political history.


Ada, an analyst on Facebook's Spanish user operations team, is wondering how the candidates' Facebook followers will react if there is an run-off election.


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¿Si "Me gusta" entonces voto?

El domingo 30 de mayo los colombianos decidirán el destino de su país en las urnas con la elección de un nuevo presidente. Millones de personas saldrán a votar en Colombia mientras otros lo haremos fuera de nuestra patria. En el caso de que ningún candidato consiga por lo menos el 51 por ciento de los votos, Colombia pasará a la "segunda vuelta".

Sin embargo, sea cual sea el resultado, estas elecciones quedarán para siempre en la memoria de esa nación, pues los candidatos presidenciales encontraron un nuevo lugar para hacer campaña política: Internet.

Facebook es uno de los campos de batalla donde los candidatos han atrincherado su arsenal de ideas para atraer a los posibles votantes. Miles de colombianos hemos seguido de cerca estas elecciones a través de sus páginas. Entre los candidatos que han conseguido más de 100.000 conexiones en Facebook se encuentran Gustavo Petro, Juan Manuel Santos y Antanas Mockus.

Los muros y foros de discusión ofrecen a los candidatos un espacio en el que publicar noticias, fotos y vídeos de la campaña y permiten a los seguidores convocar congregaciones y asambleas.

"Las campañas presidenciales en Colombia buscaron emular algunas de las prácticas del 'fenómeno Obama' que tanto ha llamado la atención de politólogos y estrategas electorales de todo el mundo", comenta Víctor Solano, experimentado periodista colombiano experto en medios de comunicación y nuevas tecnologías. "Facebook ha sido clave en la campaña presidencial porque ha permitido la creación de comunidades, foros de debate, grupos de usuarios y ha dado lugar a diversas aplicaciones que han atraído a electores potenciales", añade Solano.

Desde el punto de vista de alguien que nació y creció en Colombia, y que ahora trabaja en Facebook en Estados Unidos, para mí ha sido fascinante ver cómo el sistema político de mi país ha evolucionado. A diferencia de las elecciones anteriores, esta vez existen notables diferencias entre las plataformas políticas de los principales candidatos y su cercanía en materia de encuestas es abrumadora. Es emocionante poder ser partícipe de alguna manera del futuro de Colombia.

Por supuesto, no hace falta decir que las condiciones socio-económicas y políticas de ese país sudamericano no son siquiera semejantes a las de Estados Unidos. Teniendo en cuenta además que, según el Ministerio de Comunicaciones de Colombia, de los 43 millones de habitantes de ese país sólo un poco más de 3,2 millones cuentan con acceso a Internet, cerca del 7 por ciento, realizar una campaña virtual parecería no tener ningún sentido.

Sin embargo, las nuevas tecnologías están cambiando esta percepción y abriendo nuevas puertas para que los votantes tomen decisiones más informadas o simplemente se animen a votar. Las autoridades electorales esperan que más de 3 millones de nuevos votantes se unan a los casi 30 millones de colombianos ya registrados para votar.

Gracias a Facebook, los candidatos están ahora más cerca de sus seguidores y tienen una nueva herramienta para difundir su mensaje. Sin embargo, también los ha puesto bajo una lupa gigante y son más susceptibles de ser criticados. Una nueva e inesperada arena política ha surgido en Colombia que ha tomado por sorpresa a los candidatos presidenciales.

Continúa la batalla para que más usuarios presionen el botón "Me Gusta", pero aún queda una pregunta: ¿cuántos de estos usuarios pasarán de lo virtual a lo real y saldrán a las urnas el día de las elecciones? Tendremos que esperar un par de días más para saberlo. Sea cual sea el resultado electoral, las redes sociales entraron a formar parte de la historia de Colombia, país en el cual hacer campaña política ya no será lo mismo.


Ada, analista del equipo de operaciones de usuarios en Español, se pregunta: ¿qué pasará con los seguidores de los candidatos en Facebook en caso de una segunda vuelta?

When we started Facebook, we built it around a few simple ideas. People want to share and stay connected with their friends and the people around them. When you have control over what you share, you want to share more. When you share more, the world becomes more open and connected.

Today, I want to share some thoughts on how we've evolved to this point, what we're doing now to give you more control, and what you can expect from us going forward.

Looking back, the first version of Facebook was very simple. There were almost no features. There were... no status updates, photo albums or messages. There was no News Feed or Platform. The only people who could use it were college students in the United States.

The way the site worked was that everyone could see some basic information about you and the rest of your information was only visible to people in your networks and your friends by default.

As the site grew and as we rolled out new features, Facebook became less about colleges and more about sharing lots of content with different groups of people. So a little more than a year ago, we started working on a new privacy model to reflect how the site had evolved.

As News Feed became more central to your experience, we added privacy settings so you could control who could see each individual status update, photo album, video and everything else you share into the stream.

As Platform became more popular, we restricted the way applications could access your personal information. Now all applications and websites can only see content that is already visible to everyone. They must get permission to access anything else.

As regional networks grew to include more and more people, we decided to phase them out since they were too big for you to effectively control your information. While this was not a big issue in the United States, more than 50 percent of you worldwide were in networks that spanned whole countries like India and Turkey.

Replacing regional networks meant we needed a new model for control. In general, we recommended that you share basic info like status updates and posts with everyone, content like photos and videos of you with friends of your friends, and sensitive items like contact information with only your real friends. We asked each of you to look at your settings and choose what you wanted.

More recently, we also launched community pages and other ways to give you personalized and social experiences on other sites you use.

Since then, you have sent us lots of feedback. We've listened carefully in order to figure out the best next steps. We recognize that we made a lot of changes, so we really wanted to take the time to understand your feedback and make sure we address your concerns.

The number one thing we've heard is that there just needs to be a simpler way to control your information. We've always offered a lot of controls, but if you find them too hard to use then you won't feel like you have control. Unless you feel in control, then you won't be comfortable sharing and our service will be less useful for you. We agree we need to improve this.

Today we're starting to roll out some changes that will make all of these controls a lot simpler. We've focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.

Today is International Missing Children's Day, a day to celebrate efforts that have led to the recovery of missing children, reflect on the plight of those who are still missing, and dedicate ourselves anew to helping bring those children home.

What started as a local effort in one country has spread across four continents, with events and activities in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. At Facebook, we always work to create a safe environment for people using... it and, wherever you live, Missing Children's Day serves to remind us all to make child protection a priority.

As a place where teens and adults across the globe come together, we at Facebook have a unique perspective on the work law enforcement officers do every day to find missing children. The Internet plays a larger role in all of our lives and, as a result, Facebook plays a small part in supporting efforts to track down missing kids.

Today, we want to thank those officers for their tireless work, and recognize a couple of them by sharing stories of their successes using the Internet to help find missing children. We haven't provided identifying details about the two individual officers who shared their stories with us because the nature of the jobs doesn't allow us to identify them by name.

A detective in the child exploitation unit of a large law enforcement agency in Virginia explains how he worked with us to find one girl who had run away from home in February this year:

At Facebook, we're constantly working on new ways to protect you from scams and help you keep your account and information secure. Today, we're announcing some new tools and systems designed to keep the bad guys out and keep you abreast of suspicious activity so you can quickly take action to correct it.

We've always devoted significant time and effort to security. We've built technical systems that operate behind the scenes to quickly detect and block suspicious behavior, delete phony posts and messages, and return compromised accounts to... their rightful owners. Most of these systems are invisible to the average person who uses Facebook. Very few people will ever experience a security issue on Facebook, which means that most of you have probably never noticed these systems at work. Rest assured that these systems are there, though, protecting you and your friends.

Login Notifications

Over the last few weeks, we've been testing a new feature that allows you to approve the devices you commonly use to log in and then to be notified whenever your account is accessed from a device you haven't approved. This feature is now available to everyone.

To try it out, go to the Account Settings page and click on the link next to "Account Security" at the bottom of the page. If you select the option to receive notifications for logins from new devices, when you log in, you'll be asked to name and save the various devices you use to access Facebook.


For example, you can save your home computer, your school or work computer, and your mobile phone. Once you've done this, whenever someone logs in to your account from a device not on this list, we'll ask the person to name the device.


We'll also send you an immediate email notification - and if you want, a text message - so that you're always up to speed on how your account is being accessed. This notification will provide steps on how to reset your password and remove the device, so you can quickly secure your account if it's being accessed from a device you don't recognize.

We're not aware of any other service that does this, and we encourage you to try it out.

Blocking Suspicious Logins

We've also built a new system to block suspicious logins before they happen. When we see that someone is trying to access your account from an unusual device, we'll ask the person to answer an additional verification question to prove his or her identity as the real account owner. For example, we might ask the person to enter a birth date, identify a friend in a photo or answer a security question if you've previously provided one. These questions are designed to be easy for you, and hard for a bad guy, and we've already seen some great results.


Once you've confirmed your identity, you'll have the opportunity to review recent logins on your account and reset your password if you see logins that you don't recognize.

You won't go through this flow often. We'll only ask you to prove your identity on the rare occasion that we notice something different. If you're ever asked to go through this flow, that's just Facebook's site integrity team saying "Hi" and that we're here to help you protect your account.

We're confident that these new tools and systems will do a lot to prevent unauthorized logins and the nuisance they can cause. As always, though, the first line of defense is you. We need you to help by practicing safe behavior on Facebook and wherever you go online.

Be careful where you enter your password, and don't download suspicious-looking software. We've posted more tips and information on how to be safe on our Facebook Security Page, so check it out and "Like" it for ongoing updates.


Lev Popov, a software engineer on Facebook's site integrity team, is keeping track of his Facebook logins.

Respected British football manager Bill Shankly once famously said, "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death...it is much, much more important than that." While growing up in Taiwan during my childhood, I learned firsthand what Shankly meant.

Football, also known as soccer in some countries, is not exactly a national sport in Taiwan. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time the national team even came close to qualifying for the World Cup. But when the tournament came around, everything—and I mean... everything—stopped. The World Cup was the one event that brought everyone—my family, friends, country and the world—together. For a few moments at least, the world seemed smaller and more connected.

In a few short weeks, people from all 32 competing countries and the rest of world will come together for the 2010 World Cup unfolding in South Africa, both on the field and through Facebook. To make it easier for you to be part of the action with your friends and the world, we're launching Facebook's Goal! Leaderboard today on the Sports on Facebook Page.

We chose one of our preferred developers, Involver, to build this application, and they've created an engaging, globally accessible application that is designed to ignite and stoke global football passions in preparation for the June 11 kick off. It is available initially in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese.



This leaderboard complements the hundreds of authentic team, player, brand and media voices that are sharing World Cup dreams and drama on millions of people's Facebook home pages. People's football passion will be shared, liked, commented upon and amplified billions and billions of times over. In fact, one could say that the 2010 World Cup tournament marks the first time in history that the event will be truly experienced and celebrated through the eyes of friends.

Through the Goal! Leaderboard, fans all over the world can:

Mom's Yiddish Word of the Day

Whether they're feeding fish on Happy Aquarium or checking up on their kids at college, moms everywhere are taking advantage of the various Facebook features that allow them to stay connected to their families and friends.

We at Facebook couldn't be more excited to have our own mothers be some of our most enthusiastic and active supporters. But as everyone who has a mom on Facebook knows, their messages and postings can lead to some comical interactions. As a tribute to all of the moms who have wholeheartedly embraced Facebook and in honor of... Mother's Day being celebrated in dozens of countries this Sunday, we wanted to highlight some of the more amusing stories of sharing—and, sometimes, oversharing—between Facebook employees and their moms.

We're bringing the Facebook Gross National Happiness index to 18 additional countries today, including Germany, India and Spain. As before, we analyzed the use of positive and negative words in status updates to estimate the happiness of people on Facebook in each of the countries.

We chose the countries based on those with the highest volumes of status updates in one of the languages that we currently support: English, Dutch, German, Italian and Spanish. This is because we need a large number of status updates in order to build a model that is... not easily affected by random variations in word usage. Our methodology also requires us to have reliable, validated dictionaries of positive and negative words in the languages we analyze, which is why we do not yet support all languages.

We found that a country's happiness score is representative of the country's culture and experience on a particular day. Besides popular holidays like Christmas and New Year's Day, we see a spike in Spain's happiness index corresponding to Saint Jordi's day in Apri. In India, Holi in March and its Independence Day in August also lead to peaks, as do big sports victories in many of the countries. In the United States, we see similar spikes every Super Bowl.

Sports also can lead to some of the lowest days in the happiness index. Ireland's score drops on Nov 18, 2009, when FIFA awarded a controversial win to France over Ireland in the World Cup playoffs. Similarly, Germany's happiness level dips on Nov 10, 2009, when the goalie Robert Enke committed suicide.

Unsurprisingly, disasters have a dramatic effect on happiness levels. We see a large dip in India's index on Nov. 27, 2008, the day of the Mumbai terrorist attack. We also notice a huge drop in Chile's index, corresponding to the tragic earthquake on Feb. 27, 2010. Chile's happiness index has still not fully recovered. When another earthquake of a magnitude 6.3 hit central Italy on April 6, 2009, its happiness score dropped, as did Mexico's index between April 24-29, 2009, during the H1N1 flu outbreak and an earthquake.

Check out the graph yourself and see if you can find a significant day in your country.

Cultural differences also play a role in people's weekly happiness cycles and how they celebrate holidays. South Africans are happier on Fridays than Saturdays, a weekly cycle different from that of other countries. In several countries such as Spain and Germany, people are more festive on Christmas Eve than on Christmas Day. One week later, Singaporeans are happier on New Year's Day than New Year's Eve.

Measuring Happiness over Time

Because each country is analyzed separately to reduce effects due to language differences, we cannot directly compare one country's Gross National Happiness to another country's. However, we can compare how the indices of different countries are changing: We can determine whether people on Facebook in specific countries are becoming more or less happy over time. We examined these trends from September 2008 through the present. The results, as well as all the countries with Gross National Happiness indices, are shown below.



Some countries like the U.S. and Canada are seeing increases in both positivity and decreases in negativity. Other countries like India see decreases in negativity, but changes in positivity are not statistically significant. We see an increase in both positivity and negativity in Spain and almost all Spanish-speaking countries. Singaporeans and South Africans, on the other hand, are decreasing their use of emotional words overall.

As always, no one at Facebook reads status updates to conduct this analysis. Instead, computers do the calculations after all personally identifiable information is removed.


Lisa, an intern on Facebook's data team, is now back at the University of Waterloo improving Canadian happiness.

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.

Some events in life are spontaneous—such as catching a movie, meeting a friend for dinner or taking an impromptu day trip. So today, we're making it easier to let your friends know about those last-minute plans in our new version of Facebook Events.

You can now create an event directly from the "Events" box on your home page with one step. Just start typing your event into the "What are you planning?" field on the right-hand column of your home page. A form will open. Add a time and place, and you'll be ready to share your plans with your... friends.



You can also create events by going to your Events dashboard in the left-hand menu. Once you're there, click the "+Create an Event" button and fill out each field. This more-detailed creation form is useful for more formal events or those you're planning further in advance.



With this update to Facebook Events, we've streamlined the number of options to make it faster and simpler to share your plans. For example, for all events you create, the people you invite will be able to post messages, photos, videos and links on the event's Wall.

You can also choose between two types of events: a public event, available for anyone to RSVP and attend, and a private event. Private events will only be visible to people who have been invited, and only invited people can see the event in their News Feed.

Events created before this launch will maintain all of their settings. Going forward, all new events you create will follow this new format.


Devin Naquin, a Facebook engineer, is planning to go skydiving this weekend.