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NationBuilder Launches Its Version of an iOS for Movements and Campaigns

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Friday, October 11 2013

NationBuilder founder Jim Gilliam visiting PDF office, 2009 (By Micah L. Sifry)

The Republican National Committee spent much of the spring of 2013 publicizing its ambition to build an in-house apps platform to enable technological innovations in their political sphere of technology, but it turns out that the non-partisan software startup NationBuilder may have gotten there first. NationBuilder pulled the wraps off of its new application platform earlier this week with an impressive array of companies that have made use of NationBuilder's new application programming interface (API.) They include Organizer, which makes a canvassing tool that we covered last week, and a host of other apps that for activists and politically-engaged citizens from ActionSprout, Amicus, CallFire, Change.org, ControlShift, and MobileCommons. Read More

WeGov

It's Not New, But "Twiplomacy" Is Increasingly Refined

BY Jessica McKenzie | Friday, October 11 2013

"Real-time fire hose" (Wikipedia)

Oh, the things you can read on “that real-time fire hose of public opinion known as Twitter,” as the New York Times so aptly called it.

During the United Nations General Assembly meeting that took place in the last few weeks, it was the place to go for progress reports on negotiations over Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons. It was also where the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, announced his “historic” phone call with Barack Obama, the first exchange of its kind between the United States and Iran in more than 30 years.

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First POST: Greased

BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, October 11 2013

Politifact branching out with Punditfact; why you shouldn't "drunk dial" random Members of Congress; why "greasing" IT contracts led to the HealthCare.gov mess; and much, much more. Read More

WeGov

Saudi Arabia Blocks Online Petition to Lift Ban on Women Drivers

BY Jessica McKenzie | Thursday, October 10 2013

An alternative headline

The drive to get Saudi women behind the wheel has been long and arduous. Women have been protesting the ban on women drivers since the early '90s. An online petition created in September has thrust the issue into the spotlight once more, with everyone from the religious police to pseudo-scientists weighing in. In what seems like promising news, three women, members of the council that advises King Abdullah, recommended earlier this week that the ban on women driving be lifted. But the country-wide blocking of the online petition suggests authorities are not yet ready to listen, in spite of their claims otherwise.

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First POST: Root Causes

BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, October 10 2013

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus: Just how far has the Obama administration strayed from its promise to be the most open and transparent in history?; how government procurement practices led to the HealthCare.gov mess; Ari Fleischer's Twitter meltdown; and much, much more. Read More

Coders Try Debugging Shutdown and Constitution on GitHub

BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, October 9 2013

Could the answer to the government shutdown be debugging the Constitution? That's the solution several coders and developers are jokingly suggesting on a GitHub thread. Read More

WeGov

A Guide to the Hackers of the Syrian Civil War

BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, October 9 2013

Screenshot of a Facebook page for the Syrian Electronic Army

The Syrian war is being waged on more than one front. While rebels attack government military facilities and the regime uses chemical weapons against its own people (and is subsequently strong-armed into destroying their cache of chemical weapons), hackers on both sides attack their opposition's websites and social media pages. A report by the Syrian Digital Safety Project SalamaTech profiles the major players in Syria's Hacker Wars.

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WeGov

SIM Card Registration Newest Assault on Privacy and Freedom of Expression in Zimbabwe

BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, October 9 2013

Harare, Zimbabwe (Wikipedia)

As of October 1, Zimbabweans have 30 days to register their SIM cards with their service providers, or risk a fine or imprisonment of up to six months. The Zimbabwean government is also establishing a single subscriber database of all the subscribers' personal information. The government justifies these measures as necessary to safeguard national security, but human rights activists in Zimbabwe say that they pose a threat to citizens' privacy and free expression.

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First POST: Counting

BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, October 9 2013

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers:The latest details on the health care exchange signups (and problems); a new tech advocacy group launches; Nick Bilton's forthcoming book on Twitter gives the unvarnished version of its founding; and much, much more. Read More

[Op-Ed] Why You Should Take the Tech Community Survey

BY Gina Cooper | Wednesday, October 9 2013

Attendees at PDF 2013 (By Esty Stein and Personal Democracy Forum)

It's time to build a national baseline of information about what tech users and creators care about and will work for in the civic space, says Gina Cooper, one of the co-founders of the new organization TechAdvocacy.us. So stand up and be counted, and help define the tech community as a political constituency. Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed monday >

Japanese PM Thinks His People Just Don't Understand The State Secrecy Bill

In spite of objections from human rights activists and members of the media around the world, Japan's upper chamber made the controversial State Secrecy Protection Bill law in a “raucous, late-night session” last Friday, December 6, Reuters reports. The House of Representatives passed the bill on November 26. Under the new law, state employees could be jailed for up to 10 years if they leak secrets, and journalists could be jailed for up to five if they use “grossly inappropriate” tactics to uncover state secrets. The passage of the bill has sparked uncharacteristically large protests in a country where protesters have often been considered a part of the political fringe.

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friday >

Twitter Angling For More International Users

Twitter is following Facebook and Google's lead in creating an avenue for feature phone users to access their service, even without an Internet connection. They have partnered with the Singapore-based company U2opia Mobile, Reuters reports.

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thursday >

Pakistanis Show Their Love For YouTube in Vimeo Video

Although YouTube (the website) has been banned in Pakistan for more than a year now, that didn't keep YouTube (the mascot) from walking the streets of Karachi last month, asking for hugs from Pakistanis who want the video sharing site back. The self-described citizens resistance forum Pakistan for All filmed the stunt as part of their #KholoBC campaign, which opposes Internet censorship and content regulation by the government.

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wednesday >

Examining Russia's Censorship Record

Russia wants to protect children. That is their excuse for a law that gives them the power to selectively censor Internet content. Information about homosexuality or suicide, which Russia refers to as propaganda, are among the banned subjects deemed harmful to children. Earlier this year a Russian prosecutor asked a court to block the website Pobedish.ru (“you win”), part of the suicide prevention resource group Perezhit.ru, which incorporates input from psychologists, psychiatrists, forensic experts and the clergy. Because that makes sense.

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Ruck.us Dies Down; Yet Another Political Social Network Goes Bust

For two years now, Ruck.us, the political social network start-up founded by political scions Nathan Dasche (aka Abu Tom, former Senate majority leader), and Raymond Glendening (aka Abu Parris, former Maryland governor) has gotten an unearned and adoring press from the usual places. But today, it's announcing a pivot, away from being a political social network for independent voters, and toward being a digital toolkit for political candidates. GO

In Ottawa, Open Data App Competition Mysteriously Disappears

Shortly after the city of Ottawa released their new smartphone traffic navigation app in mid-November, the negative reviews started to pour in: users reported bugs logging in and bemoaned a lack of features. It was a disappointing product all around, but especially so when one considered that it cost the city roughly $95,000. Then the Ottawa Citizen revealed that the city had considered sponsoring an open data competition, but ultimately chose to give the massive contract to a Toronto company.

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tuesday >

Citizen Journalists Take On Rape And Domestic Violence

In August I wrote about a citizen journalism project in India called CGNet Swara, which residents of the central Indian state Chhattisgarh were using as a kind of government watchdog/accountability site. Since then, reports per day have nearly doubled, up to 400 a day, and a Global Post story highlights how the tool is being used by women to combat rampant rape and domestic violence.

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NYC Unveils Sandy Funding Tracking Portal Amid Calls for Transparency

New York City on Monday unveiled the first iteration of an online platform designed to track the city's dissemination of federal disaster recovery and resilience funds in connection with the aftermath from Superstorm Sandy. While advocates expressed concerns that not enough of the data was available in a disaggregated, accessible and downloadable format, city officials told techPresident they are working to make as much underlying data available as they could through New York City's Open Data portal. GO

2013 Corruption Perception Index Is In And It's Not Pretty

Transparency International just released their Corruption Perceptions Index 2013, and the prognosis is not looking good. Of the 177 ranked countries, more than two-thirds scored less than 50 out of a max score of 100. Not a one got a perfect score, with Denmark and New Zealand tying for first with scores of 91. On the other end of the spectrum, Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia squeaked out measly eights.

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