When the crowd gathered yesterday morning in Washington's Newseum to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's big speech on the topic "Internet freedom" included Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Here Comes Everybody author Clay Shirky, Delaware Democrat Ted Kaufman, Meetup founder Scott Heiferman, US Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin, the Atlantic's Jim Fallows, the State Department's new media team (Alec Ross, Katie Dowd, Jared Cohen), DC-based representatives from Facebook, and Oscar Morales, the Colombian man who used Facebook to rally millions in the streets to protest his country's leftist guerilla oppressors, it was a pretty good sign that you were in for an interesting day. It was perhaps because the crowd was itself so intriguing that it took some time for the audience to realize that Clinton had silently made her way to the stage; it was a split second before they began applauding for the Secretary of State.

What quickly became so attention grabbing about Clinton's speech, at least of our purposes, was how full-throated a defense it was of the potential of a fully networked society and fully networked world. We'll be pulling out some of the more noteworthy parts of the hour-long speech, but you can read the full text (or watch the video of it) here...

Here's a cautionary tale in how not to manage your message in a networked media age, or rather, further evidence of John Gilmore's brilliant maxim, "The internet interprets censorship has damage and routes around it." Late Monday night in England, the Guardian posted a strange article reporting that it was being prevented from reporting on a question pending in Parliament. The only thing the Guardian could say was that the case involved Carter-Ruck, a prominent PR firm that specializes in working with global corporations. But that didn't stop the blogosphere, which immediately took affront at the assault on free speech. Within 24 hours the whole story was out in the open, to the chagrin of Carter-Ruck and the oil commodities firm Trafigura, which was trying to hush up an embarrassing report on toxic dumping in the port of Aibidjan by one of its ships in 2006.

A friend responded to my post about Barack Obama's sagging YouTube statistics by noting that since the election, a lot of Obama's video viewers may have migrated over to his official White House YouTube channel. Fair point. But a close look at their metrics doesn't change my main point, that the White House isn't making very good use of online video and as a result is not connecting very well online.

Here's the overall track of the White House YouTube channel, as tracked by TubeMogul:

If you chart the daily viewership of Barack Obama's official channel on YouTube, you might conclude that being President of the United States is the kiss of death for online enthusiasm. Here's TubeMogul's full chart from January 20 to present, which you have to scroll through using the slider at the bottom to get the full picture.

I just got off the phone with Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at Facebook, and Adam Conner, its Washington DC Associate for Privacy and Public Policy, (and one-time techPresident blogger), talking about the company's move to involve its users in shaping a statement of "Facebook Principles" and accompanying statement of "Rights and Responsibilities." So far, Facebook has set up two "town hall" pages, for discussion of each draft document. It has promised to listen to user comments, to give folks advance notice of possible changes in the drafts, and "if more than 7,000 users comment on the proposed change, we will also give you the opportunity to participate in a vote in which you will be provided alternatives. The vote shall be binding on us if more than 30% of all active registered users ... vote." All of this is a result of a user-rebellion that was touched off a few weeks ago over some changes in Facebook's terms of service pertaining to ownership of content--and interestingly enough, two of the de-facto leaders of that rebellion, Julius Harper of Los Angeles and Anne Kathrine Yojana Petterøe of Oslo, Norway, are being included by the company in this process, though their exact role is still unclear. (See also Nancy Scola's earlier post on this here.)

The pyramid of Internet political functions consists of message (communications), money (fundraising) and mobilization. Atop that pyramid sits communications. Message drives money and triggers mobilization. Devoid of a compelling message to spur their use, the most advanced web tools will lie fallow. The impetus to use technology is always external to the technology; the impulse to connect and contribute begins with the inspiration to do so and the inspiration derives from the message.

Notwithstanding that hierarchy, the wave of Internet acclamation in the aftermath of the 2008 election has been focused primarily on mobilization and money, on networking tools and techniques, their effect on governance, and on the medium’s capacity to generate eye-popping revenue. Less noted is the impact of the ever-growing online commentariat whose pointed opinions shape our worldview and whose influence on the 2008 election was nothing short of decretive.

Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, who just endorsed Barack Obama, tells Arianna Huffington, another Obama supporter, that "We are witnessing the end of Rovian politics," thanks to the internet and tools like YouTube. And Huffington amplifies his point, writing today:

Thanks to YouTube -- and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails -- it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed.

Leaving aside the fact that both Schmidt and Huffington are both rooting for Obama to win, and therefore are inclined to color every McCain attack in the darkest terms possible, I think they have a point. Something significant has changed in just the last four years. We are collectively witnessing, and simultaneously creating, a networked public sphere that continuously scours the world for interesting information and collectively bubbles the most important stuff to greater view.