Facebook will roll out a petitions feature called 'Community Action' in the US this week, which it has been testing in a couple of unspecified markets, reports TechCrunch. With the feature, Facebook users can create a community action with a title, description and image, and tag government agencies and officials who will be notified. The 'community action' gathers attention and rallies people to 'support' it. People can then have their own discussion feed, with comments, users can organize fundraisers, events or Call Your Rep campaigns. Facebook will display the number of supporters of a community action, but it would reflect only those names which are the user's friends or Facebook pages, or public figures. Facebook is now going to allow Americans to tag President Donald Trump or the US vice-president in the actions. At this stage, it is unclear how Facebook plans to deal with spam tagging, trolls and abuse. Facebook's community initiatives in the US Facebook has also led other community initiatives in the recent past, like Town Hall/Call Your Rep feature and the Candidate Info feature. Town Hall allows users to contact (directly message, call, follow) their elected state and federal representatives, as well as local representatives like council members, mayors, and others. Candidate Info was introduced ahead of the US mid-term elections – politicians features piece-to-cameras by politicians to directly connect with voters, they can also explain their policy, manifesto and qualifications. Apart from the above election/politics related features, Facebook also runs a feature to find help after…
