(Image source from: Livemint)

As Lok Sabha elections in India are approaching, several agencies are in a bid to educate citizens about the polls. The social media giant Facebook has launched two new features called ‘Candidate Connect’ and ‘Share You Voted’, to boost the poll-bound engagement on its platform during general elections.

The ‘Candidate Connect’ will help people to learn about the candidates in their local Lok Sabha constituency, while ‘Share You Voted’ will enable users to celebrate their vote.

The feature starting next week, Voters in India will be able to watch videos of Lok Sabha candidates from their respective constituencies. The 20-second videos will appear in Newsfeed, or through a bookmark in the setting section.

"We have more than tripled the team working on safety and security to 30,000 people, introduced unprecedented transparency requirements for political advertising, improved our ability to detect and remove fake accounts and stepped up our efforts to fight false news and misinformation," said Samidh Chakrabarti, Director, Product Management for Civic Integrity, Facebook.

The social networking site said that questions included in "Candidate Connect" are based on the locally conducted consumer research programs. Both tools will be available in 12 local languages.

By Sowmya Sangam