Categories: 
Topics: 

On The Weaponization of the Collaborative Web

Matthew Burton | June 16, 2009 - 10:43am | 16 comments | Email This!

Around this time yesterday, I, along with countless others, tried to bring down the Web sites of Iran's information and justice ministries, and state-sponsored media outlets. The idea was to silence the pro-Ahmadenijad, anti-dissent messages coming from these outlets, and in so doing, strengthen the opposition protests in Tehran.

You didn't have to be computer smart to take part: a developer in San Francisco had set up a push-button tool that would, upon your click, immediately start bombarding 10 Web sites with requests. I clicked Start, and in the 10 little boxes below, I could see the pages load and reload. About half of them were already down.

This was exhilarating. The goal was to promote democracy, and I could actually watch as it happened. Empowering.

But there's more to it than that. I'm conflicted about the virtue of this idea. I'm still trying to sort out my thoughts about what happened, but I know that we will be talking about yesterday morning for years to come. We turned our collective power and outrage into a serious weapon that we could use at our will, without ever having to feel the consequences. We practiced distributed, citizen-based warfare. That is frightening. Here is how my thinking evolved throughout the day:

Our readers also like:

Daily Digest: 4/20/07
12 recommended posts
Categories: 
Topics: 
Categories: 
Topics: 
Pete Peterson's picture

Canoes and Online Communities: Front Porch Forum

Pete Peterson | June 22, 2009 - 3:50pm | 3 comments | Email This!

Last summer, Sharon Owens had a problem. The Burlington, VT mother of three was trying to satisfy the wishes of her soon-to-be 14-year old daughter who wanted to celebrate her birthday with a canoe outing with friends. The problem was renting the necessary canoes would have cost hundreds of dollars. Interestingly, it seemed that nearly ever other house in Sharon’s neighborhood had a canoe in the backyard or parked under a tarp next to a garage. But Sharon, like many of us did not know her neighbors, and felt uncomfortable asking them. The solution to this dilemma came in the form of a website called

Categories: 
Topics: 
Featured: 
Categories: 
Topics: 
Bente Kalsnes's picture

Political geeks in Europe

Bente Kalsnes | June 24, 2009 - 6:56am | 1 comment | Email This!

They work to open up government, to build new, creative tools, push for transparency and make life easier for people - I call them the eGov geeks, and they are scattered throughout Europe.

Whether you call them politechnorati, eGov geeks or political hackers, they are giving new meaning to the word participatory democracy, which can be much more than “just” voting in an election every forth year. Most of them are working in the outskirts of political institutions, but influencing them by building tools that are vastly better than what the institutions can come up with themselves.

Our readers also like:

Internet access as a human right?
42 recommended posts
Featured: 
Categories: 
Topics: 
Featured: 
Categories: 
Topics: 

PdF 2009 Video--Michael Wesch's "The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube Culture and the Politics of Authenticity

Micah L. Sifry | July 15, 2009 - 3:09pm | 1 comment | Email This!

Here's the video of Michael Wesch's keynote talk from the second day of Personal Democracy Forum 2009. Wesch, a professor of anthropology at Kansas State University, first gained acclaim as the author of "The Machine is Us(ing) Us," a video about how the internet is changing society (that has been viewed more than 9 million times), and I was thrilled that we were able to get him to speak at PdF this year.

Our readers also like:

Daily Digest: Millennials of the World, Unite!
46 recommended posts
Featured: 
Categories: 
Topics: 
Featured: 
Categories: 

Announcing PdF Europe (Nov 20-21) and PdF 2010 Special 2-For-1 Offer

Micah L. Sifry | June 29, 2009 - 5:56am | Email This!

Big news! Personal Democracy Forum Europe, our first conference overseas, is happening November 20-21 in Barcelona, at the Torre Agbar (pictured below). To get on the mailing list for more details, go to www.personaldemocracy.eu and sign up!

Our readers also like:

PdF 2010 Theme: Can the Internet Fix Politics?
9 recommended posts
Featured: 
Categories: 
Categories: 
Topics: 

Are You a Person or an Org on Twitter?

Allison Fine | February 25, 2009 - 2:20pm | Email This!

From A. Fine Blog.

There was a great post on the Chronicle’s website today about the use of Twitter by nonprofit organizations.

Great quotes from my Social Citizens blog pal Kari Dunnn Saratovsky at the Case Foundation and Beth (of course!) on the various ways that foundations and nonprofits are using Twitter to share news, raise money, organize events and generally connect with their supporters.

But one of the tips at the end of the article left me pondering. It said: Be professional. While for an animal-rights group blogging about vegan recipes may make sense, posting about how disappointed you were in last night’s episode of Lost probably doesn’t.

Our readers also like:

The World is a-Twitter
80 recommended posts
Categories: 
Topics: 
Categories: 
Topics: 

ALERT: White House seeking applicants for New Media directors

Matthew Burton | March 22, 2009 - 6:38pm | Email This!

In November, I wrote that the new administration might call upon the tech community to help improve government, and that if they gave us the opportunity, we would have to make good on it. That opportunity is here.

Our readers also like:

Will geeks make good on Yes We Can?
19 recommended posts
Categories: 
Topics: 
Categories: 

PdF 2009: The Breakout Sessions at a Glance

Micah L. Sifry | May 25, 2009 - 9:12pm | Email This!

Here's an updated guide to the breakout sessions in the works for Personal Democracy Forum 2009. This year's theme is "We.gov"--in other words, all the ways that people are using the internet and interactive communications technologies to transform politics, campaigns, media, governance and civic action.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we're envisioning four main thematic tracks to the breakout sessions, which will run in the afternoon of both days of the conference: 1) State-of-the-art online politics; 2) Exploring government 2.0; 3) New organizing opportunities, tools and challenges; and 4) The future of political journalism, blogging and networked media. There's also a couple of sessions that bridge several of these categories that we think will be pretty interesting as well.

Here's how things are shaping up. We're still tweaking these sessions, adding speakers and moderators, but what you see here now is pretty close to solid, and we're about to put them on a clear timeline as well. If you haven't registered yet, click here: now's the time.

Our readers also like:

Reminder: Google Fellowship Applications for PdF 2009 Due Friday 5/8
20 recommended posts
Categories: 
Categories: 

Announcing this year's PdF Google Fellows

Andel Koester | June 12, 2009 - 1:32pm | Email This!

Together with our friends at Google, we're happy to announce the twenty remarkable recipients of this year's Google Fellowship to the Personal Democracy Forum conference happening in New York on June 29-30.

This year's Google Fellows stood out from our largest and most competitive pool of applicants thus far. Fellows were chosen based on their experience in turning ideas into action and developing new applications of technology in the political or civic arena. This group of creative political entrepreneurs includes developers producing innovative solutions for local and national governments here and in the UK; the co-creator of The Great Schlep; an award-winning blogger for the labor movement; and one of the youngest elected officials in the State of New York.

Dan Ancona, California VoterConnect
Faye Anderson, Tracking Change
Farid Ben Amor, ACORN
Daniel Bennett, Advocate Hope
Paula Brantner, Today's Workplace
Nicholas Ryan Brown, TheLobbyist.net
Dominic Campbell, FutureGov
David Carlucci, Town Clerk for the city of Clarkstown, New York
Justin Hamilton, U.S. Department of Education
Laura Hertzfeld, PBS.org Vote 2008
Leonard Lin, Blue State Digital
Larry Meyer, Meyer Communications & The Communications Network
Mik Moore, The Jewish Council for Education & Research
Joey Mornin, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Don Morrison, Civio
Joseph Peters, Public Performance Systems
Brian Reich, consultant
Ali Savino, GastroNomalies.com
Merici Vinton, Obama for America
Nathan Woodhull, Democratic National Committee

Google Fellowships cover the full cost of conference registration; Fellows are also invited to share a meal and exchange ideas in a special session with Google staff during the conference.

Congratulations to you all and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Our readers also like:

Reminder: Google Fellowship Applications for PdF 2009 Due Friday 5/8
21 recommended posts
Categories: 
Categories: 
Topics: 

Mulling the Internet's Impact on Democracy

Micah L. Sifry | February 26, 2009 - 10:22am | Email This!

From time to time (like, every other day it seems), I get email from a reporter or an academic or a student with questions about the impact of the Internet on the 2008 election, or similar themes. Usually, if I have time, I try to answer those emails (and if I don't do it right away, they often fall by the way side). This morning was no different. A senior majoring in politics at Occidental College wrote saying, "I'm writing my senior thesis on the impact of new media in youth participation in national politics and I would love to get your thoughts to a few questions." But it occurred to me as I was responding to her questions that this was a blog post (or, as Doc Searls likes to say, blogging is just sending emails to the world). So, keeping in mind that these are the quick top-line responses I tend to give when asked these questions, here goes:

Our readers also like:

Will Blogads see a post-election slump?
75 recommended posts
Categories: 
Topics: