Posts by Miranda Neubauer

First POST: Riding the Storm

BY Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, August 28 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: A proposed tax on broadband; the Obama campaign's latest parallax-scrolling HTML5 microsite; Alexis Ohanian's pro-open-Internet bus tour; and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

First POST: Delays

BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, August 27 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: How to think about reports of the Romney campaign's "secretive" data mining practices; parsing Friday's tragic shooting in New York City; new advances in online privacy law; and more in today's roundup of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

How the Obama Campaign Used GIFs, "Glee" Actor to Score Wins on Tumblr

BY Miranda Neubauer | Friday, August 24 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Emailed GIFs are the newest form of Obama campaign outreach, but Obama for America is no stranger to the animated medium.

The campaign has been using GIFs on its tumblr for at least seven months, reblogging some and creating others on its own — and engaging with Tumblr users along the way.

First POST: Innovation

BY Miranda Neubauer | Friday, August 24 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus: Protesting British media law; Internet freedom as part of a party platform; a new study finds the presidential campaigns have broad control over the narrative about their candidate; and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

More Ways to Watch the Conventions and Elections Online

BY Miranda Neubauer | Thursday, August 23 2012

CNN/Time Floorpass App

More news organizations and technology companies announced election related online services today, as CNN and Time launched their Convention Floor Pass app, and Microsoft announced its Election 2012 Hub on Xbox Live.

Social media becomes more entwined with daily life all the time, so it's easy to call this year's conventions the "most social ever." The efforts outlined so far are long on things to watch while short on ways to meaningfully participate — although given the nature of the conventions, which many big-name politicians are not attending, that might have less to do with the applications and more to do with the events they've been built to augment.

First POST: Donations

BY Miranda Neubauer | Thursday, August 23 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: The Obama campaign announces this morning that it's now taking mobile donations; Mitt Romney's Facebook supporters; rabbis for Obama; behind the scenes at Politifact and Buzzfeed; and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

First POST: Penitence

BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, August 22 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Todd Akin's problems extend online; Tumblr's national convention plans and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

White House to Announce Presidential Innovation Fellows Thursday

BY Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, August 21 2012

The White House will announce the participants in the inaugural Presidential Innovation Fellows program Thursday. The goal of the initiative is to bring top innovators from outside government to work with innovators inside government "to create real and substantial changes that will in a very short time frame benefit the American people, save taxpayers money, and help create new jobs," according to a blog post from White House CTO Todd Park. Read More

First POST: Persistence

BY Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, August 21 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Todd Akin's future; a closing gap in online advertising between the Obama and Romney campaigns; drones for police; and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

How a Romney Gaffe that Wasn't Went Viral on the Web

BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, August 20 2012

"I never tried to pretend that the original 'RMoney' image was real, and acknowledged that it was faked shortly after I posted it," said Dave Allsopp, co-founder of the liberal site Democratic Underground. "But I understand that since then people have been confused as to whether it is real or not. As I said, that's probably the main reason why it has spread so far."

News Briefs

RSS Feed tuesday >

Cory Booker Hires Democratic Organizing Veteran Addisu Demissie To Manage Senate Run

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has hired a veteran of the Democratic organizing world Addisu Demissie to manage his run to succeed the late New Jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. GO

ShareProgress Debuts Social Sharing Optimization Tools

ShareProgress, a left-leaning tech startup in downtown San Francisco, launched its social sharing optimization platform Tuesday after several months of testing with the progressive advocacy group CREDO Action. GO

New Organizing Institute to Move from Collecting Election Data to Organizing Election Officials

The New Organizing Institute, a progressive nonprofit that trains campaigners and is no led by former Obama for America data director Ethan Roeder, is launching a new initiative next week aiming to "fix that" for local elections. NOI will announce a national network where local election administration officials can congregate to share solutions to common issues. It's a transition for a team at NOI that had previously been managing the Voting Information Project, which collects data on polling places, election districts and voter registration deadlines and prepares it for third parties in machine-readable format. In the 2012 election cycle, backed by the Pew Charitable Trusts and partnered with Google, VIP made information available in all 50 states. GO

Russian SOPA Passed First Reading

A first draft of a law nicknamed “Russian SOPA” was approved by the Russian parliament last Friday, June 14. Like the original Stop Online Piracy Act, the bill will establish penalties and procedures for online copyright violations.

monday >

Czech Prime Minister Resigns Following Corruption and Surveillance Scandal

The prime minister of the Czech Republic resigned yesterday, irreparably damaged by a corruption scandal and the possibility of impropriety in his personal life. According to the Czech constitution, his entire government will also have to relinquish office.

friday >

Mayors of New York City and San Francisco Announce "Digital Cities" Summit

The Mayors of New York City and San Francisco announced Friday that they're co-hosting meetings in the Fall and early next year to examine the "best practices" that lead to tech-enabled economic growth. The meetings are follow-ups to the initial Bloomberg Technology Summit held last year in New York City. This year's summit in New York ... GO

New York State Joins GitHub to Get Feedback on Open Data Policy

New York is the first state to publish an initial draft of its open data guidelines on GitHub to seek feedback from the public, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in a press release Thursday. GO

Brazilians Protest Forced Evictions on YouTube and in Mock World Cup

Tomorrow Brazilians who have been forced out of their housing in advance of the 2014 World Cup will stage their own “People's Cup” in Rio de Janeiro to draw awareness to forced evictions.

A “Fix-Rate” for Corruption: Integrity Action Wins the Google Global Impact Award

“From wanachi (“citizen”) to up there,” Emmanuel Dzombo explains with an upward sweep of his hand, is how Integrity Action has begun to reverse the bureaucratic top-down approach that has often blocked development work in Kenya. Dzombo is a local leader in Chengoni, Kenya, a country that ranks towards the very bottom of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – at 139. The organization believes it could do more, and Google.org seems to agree. The Google Impact Challenge will provide the charity with £500,000 that will allow it to develop a mobile application for tracking and collecting data from citizens. GO

Crowdsourced "Danger Maps" Track Air, Soil and Water Pollution in China

Chinese citizens are exposing sources of pollution and other environmental problems by contributing to the partially crowdsourced website 'Danger Maps'. So far, the Chinese government is letting them get away with it.

thursday >

U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board To Meet Next Wednesday

A long dormant independent agency that was at least nominally supposed to exercise a modicum of oversight over the booming intelligence-industrial complex is scrambling to meet up next Wednesday, but the public will still be none the wiser about what it plans to do, since it is a closed door meeting. The only indication that the toothless ... GO

Despite Software Problems, Civic Hackers are Pedaling Bike Share Data

Reporters are shoaling around the news that New York City's new bike sharing system, Citi Bike, is benighted with problems stemming from its high-tech software. But that's not putting the brakes on plans to explore what programmers might do with data generated by the system by hosting a Citi Bike Civic Hack Night later this month. GO

Grassroots Republicans Are Not Waiting for the RNC To Revamp Their Digital Strategy

Several members of the Republican Party rank and file aren't waiting around for the GOP to reinvent itself on the technological front. They're organizing events themselves to explore what a tech-enabled GOP might look like for the 2014 cycle. GO

wednesday >

New Russian Law Makes Publication of Information on Gay Rights Illegal

On June 11 the Russian parliament passed a bill against “homosexual propaganda” that effectively outlaws gay rights rallies and bans informational or pro-gay rights material from publication in the media or on the Internet. Violators of the law will risk heavy fines and censorship and, in the case of a media outlet, risk being shut down. It had near unanimous support, passing in a 436-to-0 vote, with only one abstention.

Macedonia Draft Law to Regulate and Restrict the "Last Arena for Freedom of Speech"

The draft of a media regulation law in Macedonia has journalists and press freedom watchdogs up in arms. The proposed Law on Media and Audiovisual Media Services was written by the government behind closed doors and without input from the media or NGOs. It has been interpreted as a decisive move on the part of the government to limit speech online in a country where press freedoms are already limited. Until now, Internet-based news sites were not regulated like print media.

Trying to Prosecute Online Piracy in Canada? Good Luck!

A private firm that is monitoring Canadians who download pirated content online has found itself at the center of a legal battle. GO

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Civic Hacking

Online Organizing