Facebook's New Initiative Provides Info On Election Candidates

Not sure about which candidate to vote for during during the State elections? Worry not. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Facebook have joined hands to provide the information on candidates for free. The initiative is aimed at helping voters make an informed decision.

So what kind of information is on offer? According to an official statement, users will be able to access the election candidates' criminal, financial, educational, professional information directly on their mobile via Facebook. The service will work through USSD technology, meaning that it can be accessed by people without Internet.

"Simply voting in an uninformed manner is not enough, citizens need to make an informed choice," said ADR founder and trustee Prof Trilochan Sastry. "Voters will be able to know the poll worthiness of candidates, their educational, criminal and financial information, at their fingertips and choose wisely."

By combining ADR's strong experience in electoral research and Facebook's wide reach over Indian Internet users, the initiative has the power to impact elections in a big way.

"Our goal is to enable citizens to get involved in issues of governance. We are delighted to collaborate with ADR on this important initiative," said Ankhi Das, public policy director at Facebook India.

Interested? Great. You can get information by simply dialing *325*35# on your mobile phone to access the election menu. Apart from this, one can also dial *325# to access Facebook and select the election menu (option 6).

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