Facebook-ANSA in election window

(ANSA) - Rome, February 9 - Italian voters and politicians will engage through Facebook Live broadcasts ahead of the March 4 parliamentary elections as part of an initiative between the popular social network and the top Italian news agency, ANSA.
    Beginning next week, the interviews will be held in the Italian headquarters of Facebook in Milan and will focus on the main issues of the candidates' election campaigns. They will be moderated by ANSA journalists, who will also select questions from the public sent via the social network. "The same principles that have inspired our work since 1945 are at the basis of the current digital flows. We will apply them also in the Live appointments that we will hold with the most popular social network in the world, with whom we are please to collaborate, ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections," ANSA Editor-in-Chief Luigi Contu said. "The Facebook-ANSA project will give citizens a significant information tool at a decisive time for the political future of the country." "We are especially proud of the close collaboration with such an excellent partner as ANSA, since it will enable people to become aware of the position of different leading players on the political scene directly through their own words and to interact with them by asking questions and commenting on Facebook, Facebook Italia country director Luca Colombo said. "It is part of our continued fight against disinformation and comes in addition to what has been announced in recent weeks," he said. The Facebook Live broadcasts will be available both on the Facebook page and on the internet site of ANSA. It is not the only initiative that Facebook is bringing in for the Italian elections. In late January, it announced that it would be countering fake news and the initiatives 'Candidates' and 'Points of View' will be launched in the coming days.
    'Candidates' will help those using the social network to come into contact with the candidates and parties in their area and get important information on events scheduled as part of the election campaign as well as how to vote using the new electoral system. 'Points of View' will show the positions of the 10 parties and political movements that surpass 1% of expected voting preferences according to the main polls. The information will be shown once every three days in the feed of Facebook users in Italy or ones that have set their devices to the Italian language. On election day, March 4, Facebook users will see at the top of their news feed a tool that will provide official information on how and where to vote and will allow them to tell their Facebook friends that they have voted. On the night of the election, after the voting stations have closed, the results will be posted on Facebook as they are counted and updated.