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Pakistanis Take Refuge in Social Media Campaigning Before Election

BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, May 8 2013

Screengrab from the Official MQM Twitter page

In the days leading up to Pakistan’s general election on May 11, politicians from the three major secular parties have been forced, by violent attacks on political rallies that have caused more than a hundred deaths, to stop holding political events in public areas. Instead, they have come to rely on Facebook and Twitter as a campaign platform. Read More

First POST: Connectivity

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, May 8 2013

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: What's up with Syria's Internet access, how the federal government is changing its stance on privacy and surveillance, and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

Syrian Internet Almost Entirely Dark, Multiple Observers Say

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, May 7 2013

Syrian Internet connections appeared to flicker off throughout the day Tuesday in what appears to be the largest disruption of access since the war-torn country was completely separated from the rest of the digital world last November. Read More

A New Home for Data on Politics and State Governments

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Tuesday, May 7 2013

Over the weekend, as journalists, activist and government workers descended on George Washington University for the Sunlight Foundation's Transparency Camp event in Washington D.C., the group unveiled its new data services portal, which is meant to better showcase and encourage projects built around its APIs. "We want to demonstrate the power and importance of these APIs in open government work," said Liz Bartolomeo, Sunlight's media director. Read More

The Net Neutrality Debate Returns in Germany, Rousing Activists

BY Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, May 7 2013

Change.org Petition Creator meets with Telekom Executive (Facebook)

Against the backdrop of the German national election campaign, the Berlin Internet conference re:publica opened Monday with organizers calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel to oppose a controversial proposal by phone and Internet provider Deutsche Telekom to effectively eliminate its flat-rate broadband service. Read More

WeGov

Internet You Can Actually Stick in a Suitcase

BY Jessica McKenzie | Tuesday, May 7 2013

Erik Hersman, aka @whiteafrican, in a Brck video screengrab

More than six months after Hurricane Sandy knocked Verizon’s landlines and Internet service out of commission, there are New Yorkers still waiting for their Internet to come back online. While a rarity in the States, unreliable access is not so uncommon in developing countries. A new device from Ushahidi hopes to solve that problem. Read More

A New Online Petition Asks the White House to Ban Google Glass

BY Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, May 7 2013

A new We the People petition is calling on the White House to ban "Google Glass from use in the USA until clear limitations are placed to prevent indecent public surveillance," although so far it only has about a dozen signatures. Read More

First POST: Gleanings

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, May 7 2013

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: How South African activists are fighting corruption with a mix of new and old tools; how the Washington Post uses Organizing or Action's own data to understand the organization; and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web. Read More

[BackChannel] Why You Should Test (Almost) Everything

BY Benjamin Simon and Jim Pugh | Monday, May 6 2013

In this post for Backchannel, veteran Democratic Party online campaigners Jim Pugh and Benjamin Simon argue that the "analyze everything" approach to advocacy — newly popular after Obama for America 2012 — has its limits. Read More

WeGov

In South Africa, Organizers Combine Old and New Media to Take on Corruption

BY Anna Therese Day | Monday, May 6 2013

Screenshot from anti-corruption campaign video.

Civil society organizers engage South Africans in the fight against corruption by employing both an old and new media awareness strategy about the gravity of this issue. Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed friday >

Organizing for Action Says It Can’t Move Climate Change Legislation In Congress

Beleaguered on one side by pressure to take a stand on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and hoping, on the other, to hang on to the activist energy of the president's progressive base, Organizing for Action leadership and partners aren't holding out much hope for the power of grassroots organizing to motivate action in Congress. GO

Code for America Launches International Partnerships in Mexico, Germany and the Caribbean

Code for America today announced the launch of its first official international partnerships in Mexico, Germany and the Caribbean. After several years of recruiting technologists to spend a year in city halls across America, the organization will bring programmers and designers into close contact with governments in each of those three places to work on a specific problem area. GO

Top Russian Social Network VKontakte Briefly Banned "By Mistake"

The most popular social network in Russia worked its way onto a blacklist this Friday, allegedly “by mistake,” according to the state communications regulator. However, Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte, has had run-ins with the authorities in the past for allowing activists to organize protests on the platform. Some interpret this supposedly accidental blocking as a warning shot.

GO

thursday >

Anthony Weiner Launches NYC Mayoral Campaign Online With An Image of Pittsburgh

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner waxed lyrical about New York City in a YouTube video as he launched his bid to be the city's next mayor on Wednesday, but he did it against a backdrop that turned out to be the skyline for Pittsburgh, as a sharp-eyed observer on Twitter first noted Wednesday afternoon. GO

Revamped Data.gov Includes API Catalog

Federal officials are now offering a list of all APIs that have been released across the federal government as part of the Digital Government Strategy and a new data catalog that allows users to more easily search, sort and tag datasets, according to a post by Hyon Kim, deputy program director at the U.S. General Services Administration. With the announcements, the team behind Data.gov, a central public repository of machine-readable federal government data, is marking its fourth anniversary and the one year anniversary of the release of the Digital Government Strategy. GO

French Authorities Want to Tap (and Tax) Skype Calls

In spite of repeated requests from the French telecommunications authorities ARCEP, Skype has refused to classify itself as an electronic communications operator in France, which would require them to route emergency calls and allow the French police to intercept conversations. ARCEP has informed the Paris public prosecutor of Skype's refusal, and criminal charges might be brought against the company for failing to comply. This is yet another instance in recent months of France making things difficult for tech companies. Some worry that the overzealous government is discouraging technological progress in France, hindering business and economic growth.

GO

New Online Platform for Crowdsourced Videos About Human Rights Issues

Anyone with a phone and an Internet connection can be a citizen journalist, as was made clear in the hours and days after the Boston Marathon Bombings. Citizen journalism has its pros and cons, but it has popped up where most needed: after natural disasters or in war torn regions where career journalists might be barred. A new human rights initiative seeks to link citizen reporting in the form of online videos with mainstream media, governments and other policy makers. The online platform, called Irrepressible Voices, will both document human rights issues and work on solutions as a community.

GO

wednesday >

Facebook Becomes Full Member of Global Network Initiative

Facebook announced today that it has opted to become a full member of the Global Network Initiative, a group founded by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to address the challenges technology companies face when dealing with governments about issues like freedom of expression and data privacy. GO

Russia's OGP Concerns Show That Transparency Matters

Last week, Russian officials announced they have withdrawn their letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership. The Moscow Times has a statement to the Russian paper Kommersant from a presidential spokesman, saying, "We are not talking about winding up plans to join, but corrections in timing and the scale of participation are possible." So Russia may still be in. Just not soon. And maybe never. Confused? You're not alone. I actually find it fascinating that the Kremlin acts like "openness" and transparency matter. Here's why. GO

In Denmark, Online Tracking of Citizens is an Unwieldy Failure

Six years after Denmark passed a law mandating that telecommunication companies retain and store their customers' personal data for up to two years, local advocacy groups and the telecom industry are pushing for immediate changes to the legislation. The practice of keeping records of private citizens' Internet use is an unjustifiable invasion of privacy, they say. The police, meanwhile, have concluded that requiring telecoms to store subscriber data has not helped them track criminals, which was the the ostensible purpose of the practice. But the Danish government still wants to postpone an evaluation of the law for another two years. GO

"Accidental" Blocking of Australian Websites Raises Concerns About Government Censorship

An Australian government agency admitted last week to unintentionally blocking more than 1,200 perfectly legal websites in the process of shutting down one allegedly fraudulent site. In their defense, they pointed out that they have successfully blocked a number of websites in the past nine months without such digital collateral. This assertion came as no consolation to Australian netizens concerned about Internet censorship, especially opaque and hazily legal censorship.

GO

tuesday >

Honda Campaign Rolls Out Endorsements From Asian American Stars

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) rolled out several additional endorsements from Asian American leaders and celebrities Tuesday, with one of them vouching for his high-tech bona fides. GO

Here Are The People President Obama Hopes Will Repair American Elections

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration established by President Obama after problematic 2012 elections now has a web presence at SupporttheVoter.gov. Obama established the commission by executive order on March 28 "to identify best practices in election administration and to make recommendations to improve the voting experience." GO

After Oklahoma Disaster, Neighbors Look Online for Ways To Help

In echoes of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast, social media sites and small business websites in and around tornado-wracked Moore, Okla., are full of offers of help, questions about missing pets and loved ones, and evidence that neighbors are willing to reach out to help one another in a disaster. On a single Facebook group, there's a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma City promising free meals to first responders or people hit by the tornado; a mother a few hours' drive from Moore offering to open her door for children who might need a place to stay; a resident sharing a picture of a found dog and contact information for the owner to get in touch. GO

Change.org Lands $15 Million From Omidyar

Change.org capped an extraordinary few years of growth Tuesday with the announcement that it has landed a $15 million investment led by the Omidyar Network. GO

What German Politicians Think of Google Glass

The German government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel has not had the easiest relationship with Google. The company launched a public campaign against a law backed by her coalition that would require search engines to pay to show news articles in search results, with mixed results. What's more, Google has long had to navigate the privacy waters in Germany and throughout the European Union. But that has not stopped her federal minister for economics and technology, Philipp Rösler, from giving Google Glass an enthusiastic test run as he leads a delegation of German technology companies and politicians on a trip to Silicon Valley this week as part of German Valley Week. GO

Crowdsourcing Waste Management Solutions in Montenegro

For once we aren't talking about the worldwide scarcity of toilets, just good old-fashioned household waste. Montenegro has a garbage problem so bad even the tourists are complaining about it. A new mobile app sponsored by the Agency for Environmental Protection, NGO Ozon and United Nations Development Programme in Montenegro will hopefully get citizens involved in reporting illegal garbage dumps. GO

monday >

Her Majesty's Government Wants to Monetize Open Data

A new paper from the chair of the U.K. government's Open Strategy Board outlines the best practices for the government's open data policies. The government-commissioned Shakespeare Review – after author Stephan Shakespeare – looks into ways to monetize open data, and recommends an all-encompassing National Data Strategy.

GO

Will Silicon Valley "Disrupt" Politics With a Candidate for Congress?

Sean Parker, of Napster fame and now executive general partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, has invested in political startups before. But last week, he went a step further — co-hosting a fundraising event for a candidate for Congress. Parker and SV Angel co-founder Ron Conway organized a crowd of Internet industry luminaries to support Ro Khanna, a former assistant deputy secretary in Barack Obama's Commerce Department. Khanna is preparing a challenge to Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), whose newly redrawn congressional district encompasses Silicon Valley. GO

Burma's Upcoming Telecom Revolution Will Probably Not Bring Internet Freedom

Burma (Myanmar) is on the threshold of an Internet revolution, but Human Rights Watch has warned companies to proceed with caution or risk trampling Burmese citizens' rights. GO

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