Change.org.

Online Organizing 2.0: How Change.org Found Its Groove (and Moved to the Center of Online Politics)

Tuesday, May 15 2012

For Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Change.org, a social action site built around the oldest and arguably least sexy tool in online politics, the petition, is exploding. A year ago, the site had about two million users and was gaining about 300,000 new ones a month. Now it's six times as big and is growing six times as fast. How did Change.org, a political startup founded in 2007, finally find its groove? And what does its sudden emergence at the center of online politics mean for the future of advocacy?

[BackChannel] Beyond Media Spectacles: Debates as Conversations

BY Mike Mathieu | Wednesday, May 16 2012

In this post for Backchannel, our ongoing conversation between practitioners and close observers at the intersection of technology and politics, Mike Mathieu of The Seattle Center Next 50 Debate 2.0 Committee describes an effort in Washington State to reinvent political debate for the 21st century. Read More

Culture Hacking: How One Project is Changing Transparency in Chile

BY David Eaves | Wednesday, May 16 2012

A few weeks after the launch of Inspector de Intereses — a Chilean website that allows citizens to map money trails in politics — the team at La Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, the organization behind the site, had an interesting visitor. At the doorstep stood a member of parliament, carrying a stack of papers which outlined his interest in various corporations. He had received the team’s letter inviting him — and his colleagues — to update his records, and here he was, ready to do so, in person no less.

That eager senator wasn’t alone: about 20 percent of Chilean parliamentarians took the opportunity to update their records. In a country where conflicts of interest are not regularly discussed or acknowledged, this was an interesting shift, a change in culture and in process that was part of a Ciudadano Inteligente's strategy to make more transparent the link between money and power in Chile.

Photo: Addy Cameron-Huff

First POST: Whitehouse.gov Edit Wars; H1-Please

BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, May 16 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: The Obama administration comes under fire for appending POTUS 44 references to the bios of past presidents; a Texas senator's support for a Silicon Valley-friendly visa program; Americans Elect's uncontested primary; and more in today's roundup of news about technology in politics. Read More

[OP-ED]: My Government's Commitment to the Surveillance State – the UK Queen's Speech

BY Jon Worth | Monday, May 14 2012

Jon Worth argues that the Queen's Speech, delivered last week, presages a return to the "Big Brother" state in the UK. Read More

[AD:] Stay In the Know On Tech in Politics, Government and Civic Life

BY Personal Democracy Plus | Thursday, April 12 2012

Personal Democracy Plus has been designed to help political professionals and advocates navigate the networked world – and help the tech community better understand trends and developments in the political arena. Subscribe today for less than $1.50 a week and make sure you don't miss a thing. Sign up now! Read More

[OP-ED]: In France, Still Waiting for the Internet Election

BY Federica Cocco | Friday, May 11 2012

Nicolas Sarkozy is not the only politician to have lauded Obama’s 2008 campaign. Many European campaigns were running slogans that echoed the “Yes, we can!” refrain.

The gimmicky rhetoric failed to persuade their electorate and, when push came to shove, pretty much the whole old continent has effectively failed to heed Obama’s campaign strategy. Mainstream parties didn’t carry out grassroots mobilization and fundraising in earnest. A top-down approach persisted.

Mike Masnick, founder and CEO of Techdirt and Floor64, Photo: Flickr/Dennis Yang

Mike Masnick: Accidental Activist to Some, "Demagogue" to Others

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, May 10 2012

Mike Masnick runs Techdirt.com, one of the most popular hubs on the web for news and opinion about innovation policy and the Internet. His uncompromising views on copyright have made him one of the most controversial and widely-read voices in a sprawling international conversation about the future of creative industry. Read More

Photo: Bastian Greshake

How the German Pirate Party's "Liquid Democracy" Works

BY David Meyer | Monday, May 7 2012

In the midst of the political upheaval affecting Europe, a relatively new movement is making stunning progress, particularly in Germany. On Sunday, the Pirate Party entered its third German state parliament in eight months, demonstrating momentum that surprises even its core members. The party is now on track to pick up a double-digit percentage of the vote in next year's federal elections. And it's dealing with this explosive growth through the medium it knows best: technology. Read More

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Summer Olympics to Stream Live From the UK — For Some

The BBC announced its plans yesterday to broadcast its live Olympics coverage of London's Summer games to PCs, mobile-devices and Internet-connected televisions, Reuters reported.

With a free Olympics application for Apple and Android phones, the BBC says it will be offering up to 24 live streams and video highlights clips, and plans for over 2,500 hours of live programming ... that is only available to viewers in the UK. NBC also plans to stream online, but the majority of free viewing of the Olympics will only be available to existing cable TV subscribers.

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CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Will Have Some Tech-Politics Commentators

This should be interesting: CNN nightly news program Erin Burnett OutFront is out with its list of political commentators for the general election. Some of the names are familiar in Internet-politics-land. The gang includes Upworthy's Maegan Carberry, who was previously director of communications at Rock The Vote; Sasha Issenberg, who ventures into our corner of the political world frequently while documenting the new science of political campaigns for Slate; and Ben Smith, veteran political blogger turned BuzzFeed's top politics editor.

Copyright Fights Heat Up Again Around Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) today re-released part of a previously leaked February 2011 draft of the U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact on his KeepTheWebOPEN website, as he joined calls by advocacy groups to make the currently ongoing deliberations about the treaty more open.

The United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are all involved in negotiating the agreement, which include provisions about intellectual property and copyright that will play a role in the developing global online economy. A 12th round of negotiations on the deal is now under way in Dallas, Texas. Issa is encouraging users to use his MADISON platform to comment on the document, which the website Knowledge Economy International obtained and released in March 2011.

House Republicans Relaunch Speaker.gov

House Speaker John A. Boehner's office on Tuesday pulled the wraps off of the Speaker's overhauled web site just in time for a major policy speech about House Republicans' stance on any debt limit negotiations in the coming year. GO

We're All Journalists, Indeed: Obama Campaign Guests Checked Mobile Phones at the Door

Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed, studiously reading pool reports from President Barack Obama's recent campaign fundraisers, catches something: the Obama campaign, per Washington Post pooler David Nakamura, appears to be collecting mobile phones from event attendees at the door, and storing them in plastic bags. At least, that was the case at a Monday event in New York City.

Americans Don't Elect to Use Americans Elect; 3rd Party Hits Wall?

Is Americans Elect, the third ballot line cum party that hoped to use the Internet to nominate a centrist ticket for president in 2012 dead? It certainly looks that way. But before anyone starts writing the post-mortem, remember that it has ballot lines in half the states--and those could be used by renegade factions in 2012, or possibly in 2014 to run candidates for Congress. GO

Lori Compas, Netroots Challenger to Wisconsin Senate Republican Scott Fitzgerald, Posts Irreverent YouTube Riposte, And It Takes Off

Lori Compas, a Democrat who's challenging Wisconsin state Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) in the state's June 5 recall election, had a rather unusual Mother's Day this year: She spent at least part of the day making a YouTube video with her family. GO

Romney Campaign Targets Obama's Barnard Commencement Speech With Google Ads

New York City area web users looking for details about Barnard College's Commencement Ceremony, where President Barack Obama gave the Commencement Address earlier this afternoon, are also likely to have encountered a targeted ad calling out "Obama's Wasteful Spending" on Mitt Romney's website, as Emily Schultheis from Politico first reported. While she suggested it was targeted at only the zip code where the college is located on Manhattan's Upper West Side, it also showed up on a search for a zip code located in Queens, while accessing the Internet from Lower Manhattan. But it did not show up for an Internet user located outside the New York area. GO

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