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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.

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First 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

WeGov

In Gaza, Tech Start-Ups Break Down Barriers to Entrepreneurship

BY Daniella Peled | Wednesday, May 14 2014

Gaza is now home to a promising startup scene (Mercy Corps)

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

WeGov

Monithon, a Government “Monitoring Marathon” in Italy

BY Antonella Napolitano | Wednesday, May 14 2014

One of the layers of the Monithon Map shows government-confiscated real estate that once belonged to the mafia

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

Sascha Meinrath, thinking about the future, presumably. Source: Peretz Pertansky, Wikimedia Commons

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

This is not how #BringBackOurGirls began (credit: Xavier J. Peg)

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

Comparison of #bringbackourgirls, #chibokgirls and #bringbackourdaughters hashtags (Topsy/Screengrab)

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

NYC Collisions hotpots visualization by Andrew Hill (screenshot)

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

Big data by Gerd Leonhard

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.

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Galt.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

WeGov

PoplusCon: Lowering the Tech Barriers for Civic Startups

BY Eilís O'Neill | Friday, May 2 2014

Listening to the opening speeches at PoplusCon (credit: Eilis O'Neill)

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

The Campaign for Local Power used Indiegogo to finance a successful grassroots drive to switch to municipal power

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

WeGov

After NETmundial, Multistakeholder Statement Criticized as "Weak, Toothless...Sterile"

BY Antonella Napolitano | Tuesday, April 29 2014

A peaceful protest during NETmundial (photo by Camille François/Twitter)

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

WeGov

In China, An Open Data Movement is Starting to Take Off

BY Rebecca Chao | Thursday, April 24 2014

Chinese students demanding better Internet. How long till citizens ask for better access to data? (chichiochoi/flickr)

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

A Twitter collage of trending #myNYPD photos (credit: Twitter screenshot)

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.

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WeGov

At 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

WeGov

England's Care.data Fiasco: Open Government Data Done Wrong

BY Wendy M. Grossman | Monday, April 21 2014

Screengrab from Paul Bernal's parody of the "Downfall" video

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

WeGov

The People's "Marsad" for the Tunisian Parliament

BY Rebecca Chao | Friday, April 18 2014

Parliament in session (credit: Al Bawsala)

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

WeGov

Can Crowdfunding Provide Healthcare for the World's Poorest?

BY Federico Guerrini | Monday, April 14 2014

The Watsi Crowdfunding platform allows donations to go straight towards a patient (watsi.org)

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

WeGov

[Op-Ed] Tech, Democracy and USAID

BY Katrin Verclas | Thursday, April 10 2014

Among a myriad of controversies surrounding ZunZuneo is the illicit collection of millions of cell phone numbers (teleyradio)

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

WeGov

A Global Campaign to Monitor the "Digital Weapons" Trade

BY Carola Frediani | Tuesday, April 8 2014

A map from the CAUSE website shows where surveillance technology has been sold to countries with spotty human rights records.

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

WeGov

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: The Problem with ZunZuneo and "Cuban Twitter"

BY Anne Nelson | Monday, April 7 2014

Rock painting of the "Cuban Five" (Photo copyright: Anne Nelson, 2013)

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

The state of govt IT today: Long lines in Columbia, SC waiting to sign-up for HealthCare.gov

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

WeGov

What Does Privacy Have to Do with Open Government?

BY Christopher Wilson | Friday, April 4 2014

Activist Aruna Roy raised questions about privacy in open government at last year's OGP Summit (Joe Athialy/flickr)

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.

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WeGov

Open Data Gives New Lease of Life for Civil Society in the South Caucasus

BY Onnik James Krikorian | Thursday, April 3 2014

Eric Barrett, Executive Director of Jumpstart Georgia at the Central Open Data Hackathon in Warsaw (Onnik James Krikorian)

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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Fleets of Sailing Robots to Help Research & Protect the Oceans

Imagine fleets of small boats cruising around the ocean, monitoring levels of plastic, oil and radioactivity, and eventually helping to clean up the ocean, and all completely unmanned. That may not be as far from reality as one might think. Scoutbots, a company that develops and builds open hardware technologies for environmental stewardship, recently began selling the first commercial prototype of its radio-controlled sailing robot, the Protei 011 “Optimist.” It is kind of like a seafaring drone.

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thursday >

Net Neutrality Activists Gear Up for FCC Comment Period

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. GO

With Rules Reform, New York City Council Aims for Open API

The New York City Council on Wednesday unanimously passed a resolution amending its rules to require the Council Speaker to make available legislative tracking information data and discretionary funding data to the public in a machine-readable format, and City Council members and open government advocates see the changes as a basis for making legislative information available through an open API. GO

The EU and I: How to Vote for an MEP If You Can't Keep Your Parties Straight

Next week Europeans will go to the polls to elect representatives to the European Parliament. Over the course of four days, the 28 members states combined will choose 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). To help them with their decision, voters can turn to the Voting Advice Application euandi. After responding to 28 policy statements, euandi lists the parties that align most closely with voters' values. VAAs have been shown to increase voter turn out on election day and to raise voter awareness about political issues, but statement selection can have an outsized effect on recommendations, leaving plenty of room for bias and inaccuracy.

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wednesday >

When Cute Cats Aren't Enough to Save Vimeo (or Reddit, Imgur, & 100+ Other Sites Blocked in Indonesia)

In his 2008 talk on the Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, Ethan Zuckerman said “if you're not getting porn in your system, it doesn't work.” The idea is that popular platforms flush with cute cats and other innocuous, user-generated content are robust enough to support more controversial content, like pornography and social and political activism. Governments around the world, however, are throwing cute cats to the wind in their quest to rid the Internet of pornography (as impossible as that must seem to people who use the Internet). The most recent victims of the porn crackdown: Vimeo, Reddit and Imgur, which are now all blocked in Indonesia.

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tuesday >

EU Court Rules Google Must Remove Search Listings Under "Right to Be Forgotten"

A European court ruled today that citizens have the "right to be forgotten" or that they can request that certain private information be removed from online searches. The ruling comes amidst an EU proposal to reform data protection laws that began in 2012. GO

British Police Officers Ask Blogger to Delete Politically Critical Tweet

This weekend two Cambridgeshire police officers called upon the blogger Michael Abberton at his home residence. After asking to come in for a chat they asked Abberton to delete a certain tweet, even though they clearly said no laws had been broken. According to Abberton, who wrote about the exchange on his blog Axe of Reason, the complaint had come from the political party mentioned in the offending (although not in any way illegal) tweet. The exchange has raised questions about censorship, police intimidation, and the influence of this political party.

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monday >

Guatemala Wants Citizens to Pick Up Slack on Sky High Crime Rates

To say Guatemala struggles to curb crime rates would be an understatement. Per the official numbers, only two percent of crimes are prosecuted (meaning a whopping 98 percent are not, not at all). Could a new citizen-driven crime reporting tool help change that?

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