online organizing

Stacks and Stacks of Emails

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, November 2 2010

One reason your inbox might have felt a bit swamped by election emails in the last twelve hours: Blue State Digital, just one of the digital firms on the Democratic-slash-progressive side of things, reports having sent ... Read More

The Art of Online "Bombings" Spreads to Spelling

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, November 1 2010

Image credit: Brian Reis/The Daily Beast Read More

Rospars Laments Passion's Absence

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, November 1 2010

When it comes to the innovation use of digital tools, why has the 2010 election cycle been, frankly, a little dull? It comes down, writes Obama '08 new media director Joe Rospars, to a lack of passion: Without a massive ... Read More

Does Grassroots SEO Even Work?

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, October 19 2010

Photo credit: Stuck in Customs Writing for Politico, Sarah Lai Stirland covers Chris Bowers' "grassroots SEO&quo Read More

Twitter Politics, and the Folly of Focusing on the Big Bang

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, October 19 2010

Kids doing something that might someday lead to something.// Credit: Eden Pictures Read More

Why Sudan Could Use a Little Slacktivism

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, October 15 2010

How Do We Know If the Spaghetti's Sticking?

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, October 15 2010

HuffPo's Sam Stein assesses the state of the online arms race, lumping together everything from online ads to fundraising drives to Twitter feeds to canvassing apps. The conclusion: we don't really know how effective any ... Read More

How You Build a Bigger Base: Lessons from the DNC

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, October 13 2010

The Venn diagram between the audience of this blog and that of the DNC's Open.Dems blog shows an overlap the size of Texas. So you should probably give the DNC's geek's site a try, no matter your political bent. Over ... Read More

On "Facebook Politics": Things Fall Apart, and That's Fine

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, October 7 2010

Rutgers professor Dave Karpf finds Princeton professor Julian Zelizer's "Facebook Politics" response in the great Gladwellian social change debate, a take we took up here, to be rather "second-rate." ... Read More

Facebook Politics Comes to Pepper Pike

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, October 7 2010

I wondered, can online politics be local? In a comment, Jill Zimon, recently-elected member of the Pepper Pike (OH) City Council, says, yes, absolutely: Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

friday >

In Google Hangout, NYC Mayor de Blasio Talks Tech and Outer Borough Potential

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio followed the lead of President Obama and New York City Council member Ben Kallos Friday by participating in a Google Hangout to help mark his first 100 days in office, in which the conversation focused on expanding access to technology opportunities through education and ensuring that the needs of the so-called "outer boroughs" aren't overlooked. GO

thursday >

In Pakistan, A Hypocritical Gov't Ignores Calls To End YouTube Ban

YouTube has been blocked in Pakistan by executive order since September 2012, after the “blasphemous” video Innocence of Muslims started riots in the Middle East. Since then, civil society organizations and Internet rights advocacy groups like Bolo Bhi and Bytes for All have been working to lift the ban. Last August the return of YouTube seemed imminent—the then-new IT Minister Anusha Rehman spoke optimistically and her party, which had won the majority a few months before, was said to be “seriously contemplating” ending the ban. And yet since then, Rehman and her party, the conservative Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), have done everything in their power to maintain the status quo.

The #NotABugSplat Campaign Aims to Give Drone Operators Pause Before They Strike

In the #NotABugSplat campaign that launched this week, a group of American, French and Pakistani artists sought to raise awareness of the effects of drone strikes by placing a field-sized image of a young girl, orphaned when a drone strike killed her family, in a heavily targeted region of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. Its giant size is visible to those who operate drone strikes as well as in satellite imagery. GO

Boston and Cambridge Move Towards More Open Data

The Boston City Council is now considering an ordinance which would require Boston city agencies and departments to make government data available online using open standards. Boston City Councilor At Large Michelle Wu, who introduced the legislation Wednesday, officially announced her proposal Monday, the same day Boston Mayor Martin Walsh issued an executive order establishing an open data policy under which all city departments are directed to publish appropriate data sets under established accessibility, API and format standards. GO

YouTube Still Blocked In Turkey, Even After Courts Rule It Violates Human Rights, Infringes on Free Speech

Reuters reports that even after a Turkish court ruled to lift the ban on YouTube, Turkey's telecommunications companies continue to block the video sharing site.

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