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New Rules for Online Politics Could Be On the Horizon

BY Nick Judd | Friday, September 23 2011

As Facebook, Google and Twitter look to get deeper into the political advertising business, the Federal Election Commission may alter the way it regulates how campaigns use those companies' advertising services. The FEC ... Read More

In Egypt, Revolution Continues to Bring Online Dissent Into the Real World

BY Nick Judd | Friday, September 16 2011

Here in the U.S., it's not uncommon for groups of people who talk to each other on Twitter to meet in person at "Tweetups." In Egypt, to keep a revolution alive in the face of resurgent opposition from the military, ... Read More

The Danish Facebook Election

BY Antonella Napolitano | Wednesday, September 14 2011

Danish elections are set on September 15th. At Nordic Techpolitics communication consultant Anna Ebbesen explained how Facebook became crucial for political campaign and for citizens. A Media Studies graduate and a ... Read More

The Europe Roundup: A Privacy Code of Conduct

BY Antonella Napolitano | Friday, September 9 2011

Germany | A Privacy Code of Conduct German data protection advocates often take aim at Facebook: most recently the Facebook button “Like” has been made illegal by the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The state ... Read More

Twitter Grows Public Policy Team With Former FCC Staffer Colin Crowell

BY Nick Judd | Monday, August 29 2011

Twitter's public policy team grows with the addition of former FCC senior counselor Colin Crowell, whose hiring was announced Monday. Photo: Andy Melton / Flickr A top former staffer at the Federal Communications ... Read More

Judge Blocks Missouri 'Facebook Law' From Taking Effect, AP Reports

BY Nick Judd | Friday, August 26 2011

A new Missouri law banning private conversations between teachers and students has been blocked from taking effect, the Associated Press reports: The law limiting teacher-student conversations through social networking ... Read More

A German state doesn't like the “Like”

BY Antonella Napolitano | Thursday, August 25 2011

The Facebook button “Like” has been made illegal by the German state of Schleswig-Holstein: the state has in fact ordered all government offices to remove the button from their web presence and shut down any Facebook ... Read More

'Facebook Law' Violates Rights, Missouri Teachers Argue In Lawsuit

BY Nick Judd | Monday, August 22 2011

The Missouri State Teachers Association filed a lawsuit Friday that argues a new Missouri law, banning private communication between teachers and students on social media, violates free speech and other rights, Reuters ... Read More

Romney 2012: "Corporations are People" Beating "If You Want Higher Taxes, Vote Obama" Online

BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, August 12 2011

Last night, about 90 minutes before the start of the Republican presidential candidates debate in Iowa, the Mitt Romney campaign sent out an email to its list entitled, "Mitt's Iowa Moment." The email had three purposes: ... Read More

Facebook Rolls Out Ad Targeting By ZIP Code

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, August 11 2011

Within the next week, all Facebook advertisers will be able to target U.S. users by ZIP code, the company announced today. The news comes to us by way of the Republican political communications firm Engage, but Facebook ... Read More

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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