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The Europe Roundup: Apps4Germany

BY Antonella Napolitano | Monday, July 18 2011

Germany | Apps4Germany Open Data in Germany takes a further step with the launch of a national competition called "Apps für Deutschland" (Apps for Germany). Apps4De is set to "open up the public sector", as explained ... Read More

The Europe Roundup: Why are Political Blogs Dominated by Men?

BY Antonella Napolitano | Thursday, July 14 2011

UK | Why are political blogs dominated by men The Hansard Society has a new report out entitled "Gender And Digital Politics" in which the three authors examine the question: “Why are political blogs dominated by ... Read More

The Europe Roundup: Social Networks and Voting in Italy: is There New Evidence?

BY Antonella Napolitano | Friday, July 8 2011

Italy | Social Networks and Voting in Italy: is There New Evidence? In the past two months Italy has faced a round of elections  – two administrative ballots and a referendum day – which have been unanimously ... Read More

The Europe roundup: Petition Your Council. Easily.

BY Antonella Napolitano | Wednesday, July 6 2011

UK | Petition Your Council. Easily. Yesterday mySociety.org launched a new project called PetitionYourCouncil.com: the website has been built to make it easy to petition your local council using their official online ... Read More

The Europe Roundup: The Danger of Transparency

BY Antonella Napolitano | Wednesday, June 29 2011

Slovakia | The danger of transparency A couple of weeks ago the winners of the Open Data Challenge were announced at the First Digital Agenda Assembly in Brussels. Best in the application category was ZNasichDani.sk ... Read More

UK Home Office Considers Mapping Faces of Criminals

BY Nick Judd | Monday, June 27 2011

The United Kingdom's Police.uk crime mapping website may be expanded to include photographs of offenders and more details about their offences, the BBC reported Sunday. The BBC gave a tip of the hat to the Sunday Times, ... Read More

The Europe roundup: Europe gets geeks - does it, really?

BY Antonella Napolitano | Tuesday, June 21 2011

EU | Europe gets geeks - does it, really? The Digital Agenda Assembly concluded its works last week gathering 1300 people from over Europe to discuss the key points of the Digital Agenda, the EU strategy for the digital ... Read More

The Europe Roundup: MySociety.org Evaluation Reports

BY Antonella Napolitano | Friday, June 17 2011

UK | mySociety.org evaluation reports After years of successful projects aimed at raising civic awareness, mySociety.org commissioned a detailed analysis of two of its most successful projects, TheyWorkForYou and ... Read More

Think Globally, Tweet Locally: British Town Council In Midst of 24 Hours of Tweets

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, March 3 2011

Boring but important: The Walsall Town Council took to Twitter March 24 to explain its value to citizens, 140 characters at a time. One of the weirdly great things about the rising significance of the Internet in daily ... Read More

British Austerity Battle Takes Up "Facts on Fees"

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, December 10 2010

Tories in the British government are rather chuffed with the response to their online campaign called "Fact on Fees," an attempt to push the conservative take on tuition increases for universities in the UK. 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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