Los Angeles – As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up,
Facebook Inc is going out of its way to show its neutrality – an increasingly
urgent matter for the social network as evidence of its power continues to
emerge.

Recent studies have shown the site has extraordinary influence.
According to research scheduled to be published in August in the Journal of
Communication, when people tagged their friends on Facebook in voting
reminders, turnout increased by 15 to 24 percent.

During U.S. presidential primary elections this year, a Facebook
reminder that informed people when their state’s voter registration deadline
was approaching and provided a link helped produce a surge of nearly 650,000
new voter registrations in California alone, according to Secretary of State
Alex Padilla.

In the United Kingdom, a Facebook reminder days before the
deadline to register to vote on whether the country should exit the European
Union led to 186,000 people registering online to vote, according to the
government.

“Generally, getting people out to vote could swing a national
election,” said Katherine Haenschen, a PhD student at the University of Texas,
Austin and author of the upcoming Journal of Communications study.

Facebook is eager to show that its political involvement is
limited to seemingly neutral activities such as encouraging voting. The company
this week released some of the guidelines that govern its all-important News
Feed – the place most people see postings on Facebook – and has pushed back
hard against recent allegations of political bias in its “Trending
Topics” module.

At the same time Facebook has embraced its role as a “new town
hall” for politics, hosting events and helping candidates more effectively
leverage their platforms, said Katie Harbath, Facebook’s global politics and
government outreach director

Her team helps candidates by answering their questions and
providing advice, such as how to use Facebook Live and how to increase
engagement on their pages.