What could go wrong? Facebook's new feature lets users start political petitions

With all the controversy surrounding the spread of misinformation, foreign agents acting as trolls, and divisive echo chambers, you might think that politics is far too contentious for social media platforms.  

That's why some are surprised by Facebook's decision to launch their latest feature, Community Actions.

Community Actions is a sort of petition feature designed to make it easy for people to get involved and influence local politics, without having to leave the comfort of their smartphone or computer screen. It's aimed at making it easier for civic-minded citizens to get involved from within Facebook by letting them start petitions or support someone else's.

Ashkan Soltani is the former Chief Technologist for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and was the Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House. He is now an independent internet consultant.

Facebook's past efforts to bring political engagement to the social media platform haven't always been successful. That's why Soltani thinks the move speaks to "some of the bravado of the company in a time where the company's been in the public eye for potentially disrupting democratic processes all over all the world."

Soltani told Spark host Nora Young that he finds it "politically surprising" for Facebook to "just kind of step into the frying pan with both feet and say we've been terrible at regulating or managing political activity on the platform broadly, so now we're going to create all these tiny micro-communities that are going to be even harder to police, and let them engage directly in the political process."      

Still, Soltani understands the move by the social media platform from a business perspective. "Controversy and contention actually drives engagement which benefits the platform," he said. "So the more debate there is around a topic, the more it drives impressions, and drives engagement."