Personal Democracy Plus Our premium content network. LEARN MORE You are not logged in. LOG IN NOW >

What I Did on My Iraqi Vacation

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, April 27 2009

Read More

Why State's New Media Delegation Went to Iraq

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, April 23 2009

(Photo by Scott Heiferman) Read More

Road Trip! Social Tech Execs Make State Department Visit to Iraq

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, April 21 2009

Read More

This Week's Favorite Political Videos

BY Editors | Friday, October 5 2007

It's Friday, which means it's time for our weekly list of our favorite online political videos. Some of these videos have begun to go viral and spread around the web; others are here because we think they're ... Read More

Obama "New Hampshire at War" Video

BY Spencer Overton | Wednesday, October 3 2007

Increasingly, new tools are empowering local "amateur" campaign staffers to produce quality content centered around local people. Read More

Coming Soon... AllawiForIraq.com

BY Alan Rosenblatt | Thursday, August 23 2007

Democracy Now reported this morning that the Republican lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers is working for former Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi in his upcoming bid to replace current Iraqi Prime ... Read More

The Rise of Ron Paul

BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, May 24 2007

I'm not sure how far we should take this analogy, but Ron Paul is to the Republicans of 2008 as Howard Dean was to the Democrats of 2004: the one candidate speaking out prominently against the war when his colleagues ... Read More

Evaluating MoveOn.org's First Online Town Hall

BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, April 12 2007

No one doubts that MoveOn.org is one of the most powerful and versatile e-organizations of the 21st century. But a quick glance at participation rates in the group's first "Virtual Townhall" this week might make you ... Read More

Daily Digest: 3/29/07

BY Joshua Levy | Thursday, March 29 2007

The Web on the Candidates President Bush is now quoting bloggers, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the Caucus reports.  "I want to share with you how two Iraqi bloggers — they have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we’ve got ... Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed thursday >

Mastercard Funding New Mobile-Based Financial Services in Kenya (Updated)

MasterCard is funding a Grameen Foundation initiative to bring financial services to the poor and the unbanked in Kenya.

GO

Transparency and Public Shaming: Pakistan Tackles Tax Evasion

In Pakistan, where only one in 200 citizens files their income tax return, authorities published a directory of taxpayers' details for the first time. Officials explained the decision as an attempt to shame defaulters into paying up.

GO

wednesday >

Facebook Seeks Approval as Financial Service in Ireland. Is the Developing World Next?

On April 13 the Financial Times reported that Facebook is only weeks away from being approved as a financial service in Ireland. Is this foray into e-money motivated by Facebook's desire to conquer the developing world before other corporate Internet giants do? Maybe.

GO

The Rise and Fall of Iran's “Blogestan”

The robust community of Iranian bloggers—sometimes nicknamed “Blogestan”—has shrunk since its heyday between 2002 – 2010. “Whither Blogestan,” a recent report from the University of Pennsylvania's Iran Media Program sought to find out how and why. The researchers performed a web crawling analysis of Blogestan, survey 165 Persian blog users, and conducted 20 interviews with influential bloggers in the Persian community. They found multiple causes of the decline in blogging, including increased social media use and interference from authorities.

GO

tuesday >

Weekly Readings: What the Govt Wants to Know

A roundup of interesting reads and stories from around the web. GO

Russia to Treat Bloggers Like Mass Media Because "the F*cking Journalists Won't Stop Writing"

The worldwide debate over who is and who isn't a journalist has raged since digital media made it much easier for citizen journalists and other “amateurs” to compete with the big guys. In the United States, journalists are entitled to certain protections under the law, such as the right to confidential sources. As such, many argue that blogging should qualify as journalism because independent writers deserve the same legal protections as corporate employees. In Russia, however, earning a place equal to mass media means additional regulations and obligations, which some say will lead to the repression of free speech.

GO

Politics for People: Demanding Transparent and Ethical Lobbying in the EU

Today the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) launched a campaign called Politics for People that asks candidates for the European Parliament to pledge to stand up to secretive industry lobbyists and to advocate for transparency. The Politics for People website connects voters with information about their MEP candidates and encourages them to reach out on Facebook, Twitter or by email to ask them to sign the pledge.

GO

monday >

Security Agencies Given Full Access to Telecom Data Even Though "All Lebanese Can Not Be Suspects"

In late March, Lebanese government ministers granted security agencies unrestricted access to telecommunications data in spite of some ministers objections that it violates privacy rights. Global Voices reports that the policy violates Lebanon's existing surveillance and privacy law, Law 140, but has gotten little coverage from the country's mainstream media.

GO

More