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Daily Digest: Do Sockpuppets Belong in Politics?

BY Joshua Sherman | Thursday, August 7 2008

The Web on the Candidates

  • Stop the citizen-presses! Decision ‘08, a competition launched earlier this year by MySpace, NBC News, and msnbc.com to find two citizen journalists to cover the national conventions has selected its winners. Matt Britten and Sara Pat Badgley were chosen by over 50,000 users with their video submissions that answered “How will you stand out in the crowd and get the scoop no one else can?” Matt Britten, who pulls an Eddie Murphy and plays every role in his video, tells us “I’m Matt Britten and I want Decision ’08 to send me to the convention so that I can ask the real questions that real Americans want answered and I’ll stand out in a crowd because as you can see I’ll be everywhere at once.” #

  • More Contests! Ten finalists have been selected by the Democratic and Republican National Convention Committees for the “Why are you a Democrat/Republican in 2008?” and the winners will attend their party’s upcoming Convention. People have submitted their videos and users can vote until August 13th. Finalists from the Republican contest range from a 13 year old to a Jedi Master and the Democrats range from a man from a community hit by home foreclosures to a war veteran. Make sure to vote! #

  • Pollworkers of the 21st Century: Pollworkers for Democracy, powered by CREDO Mobile, is an effort to recruit, train, and network 5,000 citizen pollworkers for the upcoming election (and beyond) in order to run a fair and accountable election. We here at techPresident are very impressed: how should we rethink and improve pollworkers of the 21st Century? So far they have recruited almost 2500 pollworkers and the site is a custom implementation of MoveOn.org’s event tools. #

  • Cyber-Threat at the DNC: According to the Colorado Independent, security experts fear that the Democratic National Convention could face a cyber-attack this summer. With fifty thousand expected in attendance of the Convention, many will be on laptops that are not secure and face threats such as hackers “accessing delegates' credit card information to cutting off cell phone service in the convention sites, sending out fake news releases and planting porn in an unsuspecting politician's laptop.” “Rogue“ networks could be planted that could trick users into signing in and perhaps even voluntarily give away personal information. Ah, the lure of free wifi is mighty yet the wiser must turn from the Siren seductress. Nancy will be techPresident’s correspondent at the Convention, we wish her a safe cybertrip!#

The Candidates on the Web

  • New McCain Ad Somehow About McCain: John McCain releases yet another ad today called "Democrats Praising McCain" which features, you guessed it, Democrats praising McCain. Featuring Tom Daschle, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, even Barack Obama, it is the first ad in a while from the McCain campaign that is primarily about McCain. That is, of course, Hillary gets the last word: "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House, and Senator Obama has a speech that he gave in 2002." That quote is from March of this year, which if you can remember that far back, was one of the ugliest months of the Democratic primary.#

TechCongress and Beyond

  • Twitter-Puppets: Any other day, a story about a man pretending he is Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t make news. But what if this man was pretending over Twitter? Blogger William Beutler raises suspicions over a tweet made by David All regarding the #dontgo protest and a nearly identical tweet posted only minutes earlier by a clearly fake or very confused “speakerpelosi.” This Twitterganger has erupted into Twitter scandal. To fill you in, the term that is catching on is “sockpuppetry,” but I think it’s unfair. If anything, All’s masquerading is definitely deserving of “sock-artiste” #

In Case You Missed It...

Micah Sifry writes about the hidden agenda of John McCain's "The One" video. Though it is defended as just being silly, Micah delves deeper and suggests that the ad is actually full of coded messages meant to convince evangelical voters that Obama is actually "literally, the anti-Christ." #

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

This Isn't What Political Air Time Usually Means

MoveOn.org is asking supporters for $150,000 in donations to fly a plane above high-dollar fundraisers for Mitt Romney with "a message that reminds voters how he represents his corporate and 1% donors." MoveOn previously hired a plane to fly over Romney's Liberty University graduation speech with the message "GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT." GO

There's a New $200 Million Fund for Super-High-Speed Broadband Projects

An initiative to build and test gigabit-speed broadband networks is set to fund up to six next-generation Internet access projects across the country, fueled by a new $200 million broadband development funding program, Gigabit Squared and Gig.U announced this morning. GO

New Rice University Paper Chronicles Impact of the Internet On U.S. Foreign Policy

We all know that the Internet has transformed the way that the United States conducts diplomacy, and the way that it views national security, but where should we look to find evidence of this? This is the wide-ranging subject matter of a new paper published on Tuesday by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The paper provides a round-up of some of the major turns of events between 2005 and 2011 in the realms of Internet governance, the development of online public diplomacy at the State Department, the evolution of the Internet-fueled Arab Spring, and the establishment of the shadowy U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Maryland, among other things. GO

Messin' with Lamar Smith, Revisited

Remember that grassroots fundraising campaign to put a "Don't Mess with the Internet" billboard in the home district of Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and sponsor of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act? All of the money required came in, and Fight for the Future, the advocacy group opposing more stringent copyright protections online, writes that the billboard went up. GO

Republican National Convention Organizers Sever Ties With Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions

After eight years producing online content for the Republican National Convention, GOP web consultant Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions is off of the project. "Campaign Solutions was retained to help develop our convention website and digital strategy, but they are no longer involved in convention planning," James Davis, the convention's communications director, told techPresident Tuesday. It's unclear what precipitated the of the relationship between the convention organizers and Campaign Solutions, which has been producing the online component of the event since 2004. But Donatelli's name surfaced in a controversial anti-Obama ad pitch sent to a Super PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, which appeared in its entirety in the Times last week. Ricketts has since disavowed the proposal and Donatelli has denied any involvement. GO

PD+ This Thurs 1pm: Thriving Online With Howard Rheingold

I'm really looking forward to talking with author Howard Rheingold this Thursday on the next PD+ teleconference. His new book, Net Smart, is a concise and thoughtful guide to understanding and making the most of the hyper-networked, always-on, firehose of information and distraction that is the contemporary experience of anyone who uses ... GO

City of Joplin, Mo. Launches New Online Center Ahead of Tornado's Anniversary

The city of Joplin, Missouri launched its new web site over the week-end ahead of the May 22 anniversary of the massive tornado that devastated the city and killed 161 people. The new site enables Joplin citizens to sign up for emergency alerts via text message, e-mail and RSS. In addition to those alerts, individuals can also sign up for ... GO

In Virginia, City Council Debates to Include Questions Posed Online

The Alexandria Democratic Party in Alexandria, Virginia has partnered with online civic engagement platform ACTion Alexandria to include questions solicited in an online forum in the final Democratic primary debate for a City Council election there on June 4, ahead of the June 12 election, according to a statement released by the group. ACTion Alexandria hopes to work with both parties during the general election.

Participants in the project can add questions to the forum, or vote on questions that have already been posed, although each user is only given three votes to distribute. Users are also encouraged to use their real names. Questions submitted so far hit on topics ranging from broadband access to a ban on food trucks in the city.

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