Instagram free votes for referring friends

As early as 2018, Instagram started putting in efforts to help users understand how to register and cast their votes in significant elections. The fact that elections function differently in many countries makes this an even more difficult undertaking than it already is with an app that only operates in the U.S. Hats off to Instagram for even trying to do this.

The 2020 presidential election had record voter turnout. I wonder what this next election is going to be like. Regardless of your politics, we can all agree we’re in for an interesting ride.

But how do we think about getting more people to come out to cast their vote? Pretty much every consumer social app I’ve used in the last few years uses invites as a way to boost their initial launch. It’s annoying when you’re forced to invite friends to use an app, but I understand why app developers do this.

This got me thinking… what if Instagram used a similar mechanism when getting people to vote, but they added a reward on top of it? You could get a “free” vote for every 3 people you refer.

The amount of chaos this would sow among the general public would be insane. People already don’t like some of the things Meta did in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and this would 100% be a bridge too far. A lot more people would register to vote though, that’s for sure.

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