Net Neutrality Activists Gear Up for FCC Comment Period
Thursday, May 15 2014
The debate over net neutrality reached a peak Thursday, as the FCC voted in favor of a proposal that would allow Internet service providers to charge websites and content providers for higher quality and faster delivery, and activists expressed their opposition online and offline, as GigaOm explains in more detail.But especially online, the focus of the opponents of the proposals is already shifting rapidly now to the 120 day comment period and the potential to significantly reshape the final proposals at the end of the year.
Read MoreFirst POST: On the Home Front
BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, May 16 2014
The home page is dead, long live the link!; the net neutrality fight's next chapter; why 2016 presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan may have some domain name problems; and much, much more Read More
In Gaza, Tech Start-Ups Break Down Barriers to Entrepreneurship
BY Daniella Peled | Wednesday, May 14 2014
In Gaza, where the blockade has made entrepreneurship difficult and some times impossible, enterprises that exist in a virtual world, one where the difficulty of physically crossing borders can be overcome, are becoming increasingly attractive. It’s too soon to tell whether entrepreneurship and a new fledgling tech start-up community is helping the beleaguered economy of the Strip, but those involved in the sector hope it can capture the imagination of a generation mired in frustration and give them hope for the future. Daniella Peled reports from Gaza. Read More
First POST: Throne Games, Phone Games
BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, May 15 2014
An explosive new report about Verizon's apparent abuse of Title II of the Telecom Act; the "glass cliff" and the demise of NYT executive editor Jill Abramson; what the European high court forgot to do in its ruling against Google; and much, much more. Read More
Monithon, a Government “Monitoring Marathon” in Italy
BY Antonella Napolitano | Wednesday, May 14 2014
In Italy, an independently developed initiative called "Monithon" is trying to foster online citizen observation and reporting on the development of projects funded by the European Union, a topic of particular interest at the moment given it is only a week from the European Parliamentary elections. Read More
First POST: Our Surveillance Society
BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, May 14 2014
Senate mavericks Udall and Wyden take on the government's "culture of misinformation" about surveillance; all the private ways companies track individuals will curl your hair; how the European high court ruling against Google may change journalism and free speech; and much, much more. Read More
X-Lab Prepares for Tech Policy Battles in the Far Future, Three Years Off
BY Sam Roudman | Tuesday, May 13 2014
For the past seven years Sascha Meinrath and his team at the New America Foundation have made the Open Technology Institute a force for promoting a more open, accessible internet. He has informed internet policy, and built innovative tools, like the Commotion mesh network. He has also found that much of the work of being a tech policy guru comes in reacting to crises–from Snowden’s leaks to the potential death of net neutrality. “Bad things happen and then we leap into action and do the best we can,” he says. “Then all of the sudden everyone is like ‘Oh my god. This is so horrendously bad.’ And then we’re trying to fix what’s clearly broken.” To set the tech policy agenda rather than react to it, Meinrath is starting up a new program under the New America foundation called X-Lab. Read More
First POST: Having It All
BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, May 13 2014
How the NSA hacks into some computer networks the old-fashioned way; the early notices on Glenn Greenwald's Snowden book; how 18F is pioneering a better way of building US government websites; and much, much more. Read More
First POST: Nerds Biting Back
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, May 12 2014
The latest on the FCC's rulemaking on net neutrality; tracking the details of the USA Freedom Act; Ecuador's push toward a commons-based peer production economy; and much, much more. Read More
Diversity, Credit and Hashtag Activism: How a Nigerian Movement Got Hijacked
BY Zeynep Tufekci | Friday, May 9 2014
How and why did the Nigerian movement #BringBackOurGirls end up being credited to an American mother of two in Los Angeles? Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who studies how activists and politicians use technology, weighs in. Read More
#BringBackOurGirls: How a Hashtag Took Hold
BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, May 7 2014
When it comes to online activist movements, such as the now infamous KONY 2012 effort, the question under discussion often ends up being to what degree online action can motivate offline action. But a close look at a new online call that has taken hold over the past weeks, #BringBackOurGirls, shows that the power of a hashtag can be in the much more complex interplay between online and offline actions that reinforce and intensify each other. Read More
First POST: Beware the Ides of May
BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, May 9 2014
The net neutrality fight is getting hotter; the absurdity of the NSA's new policy on not talking about what everyone is talking about; how "civic" crowdfunding projects are Kickstarter's best category; and much, much more. Read More
NYPD Among First To Release Detailed Accessible Local Collision Data (Updated)
BY Miranda Neubauer | Thursday, May 8 2014
The New York Police Department has published long-sought motor vehicle collision data in a machine-readable format in connection with the launch of BigApps 2014, the city's annual application development competition that will place a focus on Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities, setting an example for other cities, according to open data advocates. Read More
First POST: Battle for the Open Net
BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, May 8 2014
Start-ups and big tech alike are speaking out against the FCC's draft net neutrality proposal; activists start an "Occupy FCC" protest outside its DC HQ and promise to spread it; a House bill to end some dragnet surveillance advances; and much, much more. Read More
SF Faces Regulatory Duel Over Short Term Rentals
BY Sam Roudman | Thursday, May 8 2014
Regulating the so-called sharing economy is not impossible, just very hard. And David Chiu, president of San Francisco's board of supervisors is learning just how difficult it can be. Read More
First POST: Where's the Outrage?
BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, May 7 2014
Is a populist revolt against the loss of net neutrality on the horizon?; how the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag took off; a close look the SF Gives tech anti-poverty initiative; and much, much more. Read More
First POST: Middlemen
BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, May 6 2014
New ideas (and issues) for preserving net neutrality; how Governor Andrew Cuomo uses technology to hide his government's workings from the public; the USA Freedom Act moves toward a committee markup; and much, much more. Read More
Where the White House "Big Data" Report Falls Short
BY Jessica McKenzie | Tuesday, May 6 2014
The White House released its report on big data Friday to general approval from civil rights advocates for its acknowledgement of the dangers of discrimination through new ways of manipulating, combining and analyzing personal data. However, a number of concerns remain: that the report was too starry-eyed about big data; that the report gave preference to industry stakeholders rather than citizen consumers; and that its policy recommendations were not forceful enough.
Read MoreGalt.io and the Road to Online Suckerdom
BY David Karpf | Monday, May 5 2014
The latest entry into the “It’s like Facebook, but with less functionality and far fewer people” sweepstakes is Galt.io. The site, which just beta-launched this week, says it will be a location-based social network for libertarians, and invites its visitors to “Go Galt’ Without Leaving Home.” We asked Internet politics expert David Karpf to take a closer look, and he writes, "Of all the technology-revolutionizing-politics websites I’ve encountered, this is by far the silliest. Their one success thus far has been claiming to raise nearly $700,000 in crowdfunding membership pledges from 6,475 supporters. Converting those donations into meaningful political action is going to prove a lot harder for them." Read More
PoplusCon: Lowering the Tech Barriers for Civic Startups
BY Eilís O'Neill | Friday, May 2 2014
Almost 100 civic coders and activists from 27 countries came together from April 29 to 30, in Santiago, Chile for PoplusCon where participants discussed how to create easy-to-use tools, what they call Poplus components, that allow civil society to create legislative monitoring websites. TechPresident reports on the conference from Santiago, Chile. Read More
First POST: Civics Lessons
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, May 5 2014
Code for America wants civic tech to work for everyone, not just City Hall; how Netflix faces an uphill battle for influence in Washington, DC; why Bitcoin is a scam; and much, much more. Read More
First POST: Big Data Analytics
BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, May 2 2014
Analyzing the White House report on "Big Data"; Larry Lessig starts a SuperPAC to end all SuperPACs; why Marc Andreessen is bullish on the news business; and much, much more. Read More
Crowdfunding 101: A User's Guide to Success on Indiegogo. It's All About Connections.
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, May 1 2014
In this Q&A;, Indiegogo Cause Director Bre DiGiammarino shares a plethora of examples of what works and doesn't in crowdfunded cause campaigns. Hint: Don't stick your nonprofit's gala dinner video up on the platform and expect mobs to break down your door. And no, she doesn't just tell you to throw a celebrity into the mix, although sometimes, as with the legendary Silicon Valley family the Drapers, it doesn't hurt. The utility of celebrities, it turns out, depends on whether fundraisers bother to spend the time to consider how to most beneficially leverage those celebrities' connections. Read More
First POST: Adjustments
BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, May 1 2014
The RNC may be having trouble with its tech renaissance; how Facebook is "throttling" the organic reach of nonprofits and political causes; the demise of Twitter as a platform for useful conversation; and much, much more. Read More
First POST: Messaging
BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, April 30 2014
How Americans are(n't) responding to the dangers of the Heartbleed bug; mobile politicking's unconquered territory; how some of Silicon Valley is embracing the "nerd prom"; and much, much more. Read More
After NETmundial, Multistakeholder Statement Criticized as "Weak, Toothless...Sterile"
BY Antonella Napolitano | Tuesday, April 29 2014
While Netmundial did advance some important issues, such as recognizing the Internet as a global resource and the right to development as enabled by the Internet, the culmination of the conference, with the drafting of the Multistakeholder Statement did not live up to the expectations of many attendees, especially the members of civil society who had come to address issues like privacy, net neutrality and the future of Internet governance. At issue was the conference's multistakeholder approach, which sought to include the voices of thousands of those from government, academia, the private sector, civil society and the technical community, but failed to address power imbalances which gave some voices more weight, even disproportionately, one might argue. Read More
First POST: Data Acts
BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, April 29 2014
Debating the value of municipal broadband in the net neutrality fight; celebrating the passage of the DATA act; pondering the role of data analytics in US elections in 2014 and the UK elections in 2015; and much, much more. Read More
In China, An Open Data Movement is Starting to Take Off
BY Rebecca Chao | Thursday, April 24 2014
About eight months ago when techPresident first wrote about the state of open data in China, there were only three non-user friendly government open data sites and a smattering of open data enthusiasts who often had to find their own data sources and even create hardware to generate their own data. They were not a formally connected group but rather, individuals who created open data apps out of personal interest. Now, the recently launched Open Data Community is trying to create a multi-disciplinary network of businesses, research institutes, and NGOs interested in open data. Read More
After the #myNYPD "Bash Tag": How and Why Police Should Continue to Engage Online
BY Alejandro Alves | Wednesday, April 23 2014
Yesterday the New York City Police Department asked Twitter users to share pictures of themselves with police officers, using the hashtag #myNYPD. Overnight, the solicitation created a social media reaction quite opposite of what the Department intended. There are lessons to be learned from what media outlets are calling a major misstep – the “bash tag” backfire – but one hopes the lesson is not that police should shutter their accounts and shy away from public engagement online.
Read MoreAt NETmundial Brazil: Is "Multistakeholderism" Good for the Internet?
BY Antonella Napolitano | Wednesday, April 23 2014
Today and tomorrow Brazil is hosting NETmundial, a global multi-stakeholder meeting on the future of Internet governance. Read More
Announcing the 2014 Google Personal Democracy Fellowship
BY Sonia Roubini | Monday, April 21 2014
Google and Personal Democracy Media are teaming up to offer registration and travel fellowships for women working in civic technology to the 11th annual Personal Democracy Forum, June 5-6, 2014 at NYU’s Skirball ... Read More
England's Care.data Fiasco: Open Government Data Done Wrong
BY Wendy M. Grossman | Monday, April 21 2014
Given the power to open up access to public health data in legislation passed in 2012, the governing health authority ordered care.data into being at the end of 2013, and distributed information leaflets in January 2014. Unfortunately, the process has been confused by conflicting promises of protecting personal information and expanding commercial access. The resulting furor, which has seen the program delayed for six months for a rethink, has seriously damaged public trust in how the English National Health Service (NHS) intends to manage the country's medical data. Wendy M. Grossman explains what went wrong. Read More
The People's "Marsad" for the Tunisian Parliament
BY Rebecca Chao | Friday, April 18 2014
In Arabic, "marsad" means observatory, but in Tunisia citizens also know it as the name of the interactive website, created by activist Amira Yahyaoui, that tracks and provides updates on all the activities of the Tunisian Parliament, the National Constituent Assembly. The nonpartisan team behind Marsad sits in all of the Assembly's sessions and posts meeting minutes and discussions of bills, as well as a record of who votes for each bill. With no other resource like it being provided by the government, and an inventory now of 519 documents, Marsad has become an essential tool in Tunisia for journalists, activists and even Members of Parliament. Read More
#PDF14 Preview: An Interview with Jillian York
BY Sonia Roubini | Friday, April 18 2014
Our next speaker preview features Jillian York, the Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. Jillian’s work is at the intersection of technology and ... Read More
#PDF14 Preview: An Interview with Ethan Roeder
BY Sonia Roubini | Monday, April 14 2014
This #PDF14 speaker preview features Ethan Roeder, the Executive Director of the New Organizing Institute. Ethan joins PDF with over ten years of experience in political organizing and data, ranging from electoral and ... Read More
PDF 2014 | Tumblr Fellowship Application
BY Anthony Russomano | Wednesday, April 16 2014
Personal Democracy Forum 2014 is excited to team up with Tumblr to offer registration fellowships for ten well-qualified, creative social or political technology innovators to attend this year's conference on June 5-6 at NYU Skirball Center in New York City. Fellows will be chosen based on the answers to the following brief questions; fellowship award will cover the full forum registration costs. Selected fellows should be prepared to contribute content to a Tumblr during the conference. Read More
Can Crowdfunding Provide Healthcare for the World's Poorest?
BY Federico Guerrini | Monday, April 14 2014
Platforms that crowdsource healthcare in developing countries are catching on. But is it a good idea to put the health of others into the hands of the crowd? Read More
#PDF14: An Interview with Tom Tresser
BY Sonia Roubini | Thursday, April 10 2014
The next in our series of #PDF14 speaker previews is Tom Tresser. Tom is an educator, organizer, creativity champion, public defender and fighter of privatization who has been working on civic engagement and grassroots ... Read More
[Op-Ed] Tech, Democracy and USAID
BY Katrin Verclas | Thursday, April 10 2014
There has been much debate about the ill-fated "Cuban Twitter" program funded by USAID, the US development agency, and administered by Beltway contractors Creative Associates and MobileAccord. While "Cuban Twitter" was indeed completely mismanaged, USAID is involved in a myriad of other projects that are supporting democracy efforts, citizen oversight over institutions, political party development, and fair elections. Many of these purport to have a technology component as well. So how do they fare? Read More
A Global Campaign to Monitor the "Digital Weapons" Trade
BY Carola Frediani | Tuesday, April 8 2014
In an alarming trend, surveillance technology companies, many of them in western countries with decent human rights records are selling surveillance technology to countries with fairly sinister ones. This problem, which some activists have called the "digital arms trade" is global and complex in nature and is at the heart of a new global campaign launched on April 4 by an international group of leading NGOs. They banded together to create the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE), calling for governments to take action on the international trade in communication surveillance technologies. Read More
ACASignups.net's Charles Gaba: Not Nate Silver, Just a Guy with a Spreadsheet
BY Miranda Neubauer | Sunday, April 6 2014
A Michigan web developer named Charles Gaba, an active member of the DailyKos.com Democratic blogging hub, has built the go-to site for data about Obamacare's progress. Now the DailyKos community is thanking him for his efforts, raising $59,000 on ActBlue to compensate him for his volunteer efforts. Read More
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: The Problem with ZunZuneo and "Cuban Twitter"
BY Anne Nelson | Monday, April 7 2014
On April 3, the AP broke the story of ZunZuneo, a USAID-funded text messaging service in Cuba designed to circumvent government censorship and build a platform for dissent. Latin America expert and new media scholar Anne Nelson explains why the covert project was such a bad idea. Read More
At 18F, The U.S. Looks to Fail Fast on Government IT Projects Instead of Failing Big
BY Alex Howard | Thursday, April 3 2014
Can a new small office inside the General Services Administration start to revolutionize how the U.S. government does information technology? That's the premise behind 18F. Longtime open government observer Alex Howard offers this in-depth report. Read More
What Does Privacy Have to Do with Open Government?
BY Christopher Wilson | Friday, April 4 2014
The answer to that question might not be obvious. Privacy is something we tend to associate with people and personal information, while open government is presumably about making government data and processes transparent for more accountability (see Open Knowledge Foundation’s distinction between Open Data and My Data). But it’s a question that’s getting asked, as privacy and surveillance are increasingly prominent concerns in a post-Snowden world. It’s also an issue that commanded the attention of the open government community at last year’s OGP Summit. Since then, though, there’s been relatively little discussion or progress made to understand the relationship between privacy and open government. As the open government community convenes regional meetings this spring, it’s important to take stock of how open data and data sharing are de-facto drawing boundaries around these norms, and take clear steps towards building privacy into the open government mandate.
Read MoreOpen Data Gives New Lease of Life for Civil Society in the South Caucasus
BY Onnik James Krikorian | Thursday, April 3 2014
Two weeks ago, on March 21, 2014, the Georgian chapter of leading international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International called on the country’s citizens to turn off their mobile phones for one hour to protest government surveillance. The action came in the wake of revelations that the previous authorities were intercepting phone calls, text messages, and internet traffic on a systematic basis. The European Union calls the situation that still exists today under a new government, "a jungle of misuse of the possibilities of technology to record almost everything." Yet, despite concerns regarding the amount of data collected on citizens in the former Soviet republic, large online databases of government information might actually be giving the media and civil society in Georgia a new lease of life in fighting corruption and engaging citizens. Read More
#PDF14 preview: An Interview with Jake Brewer
BY Sonia Roubini | Wednesday, April 2 2014
The next in our series of #PDF14 speaker previews is Jake Brewer. Jake leads the External Affairs Team at Change.org and describes himself as someone who has spent the past decade being “generally obsessed with solving social problems at scale”, particularly the problem of making citizen’s voices heard in government. Jake will speak on the main stage of #PDF14. Read More
#PDF14 Breakout Preview: Governance Design for the Future
BY Sonia Roubini | Monday, March 31 2014
In addition to the usual collection of thought provoking main hall keynotes, in-depth breakout panels and social events, this year’s Personal Democracy Forum will feature an afternoon hands-on workshop aimed at giving participants the chance to tackle and work through some of the problems facing governance in the 21st century. Read More
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