Odd UK Collaboration To Fix Deficit And Build Public Involvement Online

The British Government has an odd team member for helping to fix the problems with public spending and building a strategic initiative to tackle the growing deficit: Facebook is that team member.

The social media company will be joining hands with the British Government to build what they have described as the “largest public engagement project” that government has ever produced. The campaign will be dubbed the "Spending Challenge" and calls for public support and actions to accomplish major cuts in public spending and greater collaboration between the public and government to reduce deficits.

The campaign launched from a Facebook page "Democracy UK Facebook Page" and is calling upon the public to give ideas for spending cuts and to generally encourage a creative dialogue between citizens and state. In the first phase of the campaign, more than 60,000 ideas were submitted in just two weeks. Citizens are not just encouraged to give new ideas but also give feedback on the ideas of other citizens.

Facebook will be a primarily serving as a platform for the debate and solicitation of public involvement on the project.