Facebook voting button 2010. (playerx/Flickr Creative Commons)

Facebook may even tell you, “It’s Election Day. Share that you’re voting in the U.S. Election and find out where to vote,” depicting the names and profile pictures of numerous friends who have voted. You can then click, “I’m a Voter.”

While these buttons are a great way for individuals to proclaim that they have engaged in their civic duty and to encourage voting, they also are and have been part of experiments set up by the social media site.

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The voting button’s role in 2010 was included in part of a study published as “a 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization.” According to the study, these online buttons can actually affect who hits the polls. You are 0.39 percent more likely to vote if you are told that your friends have voted as opposed to those who haven’t been told so.

Thus, in 2010, it is possible that Facebook influenced an additional 600,000 votes because of the button. The caveat is that the button is not shown to all users, due to the need for a control group for the research. Facebook stated in 2012 that it would make the button available to everyone in order to increase voter turnout. However, that is not the case and it has continued the testing.

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It’s no surprise that Facebook has an exorbitant amount of information stored about its users. What’s notable about this is that the social media site “could easily combine that tranche of data with selective deployment of its “I Voted” button and tilt an election. Just make certain populations more likely to see the button, and, ta-da: modification managed,” according to The Atlantic.

Read more on The Atlantic.

Contact Web Producer Belinda Cai here and follow her on Twitter here.