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Grassrootsiness

Watch out. Just because a campaign is using social media or getting a lot of support online, doesn't mean it's really grassroots. Claims of money raised via the Internet, as well as tallies of small donations versus large donors, or other newer metrics of public participation like Twitter retweets or YouTube views, don't prove anything. Such signs offer hints that a candidate or movement is resonating with the public, nothing more. If anything, campaigns often want to encourage the appearance of being "grassroots" while obscuring where the real money and power resides. The political media needs to be skeptical of this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach; too often what is said to be "grassroots" would be better described as "grassrootsy."

New Obama for America Page is a Jungle Gym for Donation Data

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, October 20 2011

Source: Barackobama.com Obama for America has released a website for users to explore data about the campaign's donor base, in order to celebrate, per the campaign, their one-millionth donor. The application allows users ... Read More

Grassroots vs Grassrootsy: How to Parse Technology's Role in Politics

BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, July 18 2011

For a whole bunch of reasons, we should be on guard against claims that money given online, as well as tallies of small donations versus large donors, or other newer metrics of public participation like Twitter retweets ... Read More

The Launch of "Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age"

BY Editors | Thursday, January 14 2010

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CNN Coverage of Organizing for America: "President Obama's Grassroots Army"

BY | Friday, March 27 2009

Today on the Situation Room, CNN aired a segment on Organizing for America and volunteers' recent efforts to build support for the President's budget, as all the work being done to harness the energy of the largest ... Read More

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RSS Feed tuesday >

Mexican Telecoms Law Delayed, For Now

A vote on Mexico's unpopular telecommunications legislation—which had been scheduled to coincide with the World Cup—has been put on ice until July, Libre Internet Para Todos (Free Internet for All) told Global Voices, although GV adds that the law still could be “fast tracked” through the process. In response to criticism and widespread protests in April, Mexico's governing party promised to make changes before passing the law. However, Access reports that any changes have been merely “cosmetic” and “almost all the threats to digital rights remain.”

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monday >

Amnesty International Releases Panic Button, An App For Human Rights Activists

On June 23 Amnesty International released their secret alert system for activists, an Android app called Panic Button. Panic Button (Beta), which techPresident covered at an earlier stage last year, is now available for download in the Google Play Store.

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friday >

The Simplest Step Ethiopians Can Take to Protect Themselves From Excessive Gov't Surveillance

The Ethiopian government has at their disposal a formidable collection of surveillance technologies, and can intrusively monitor writers and activists at home and abroad. In late April the government arrested six independent bloggers and a journalist. More than 50 days later they are still being held in custody, and yet no formal charges have been filed. In March Human Rights Watch published a lengthy and detailed report warning that surveillance in Ethiopia could get even worse if the government gains the human capacity necessary to fully leverage the available technologies.

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thursday >

Who's Behind Russia's "WikiLeaks"?

Representatives of a “mysterious Russian hacker collective” known as “Anonymous International” or “Shaltay Boltay” (Humpty-Dumpty) have denied being hackers. They have told the press that they do very little technical hacking. Mostly they leak things: government memos, email exchanges, and insider reports.

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wednesday >

NGP-VAN Adds Bitcoin Donation Tool

The Democratic campaign technology provider NGP-VAN has now integrated a Bitcoin contribution option to its fundraising platform. The company, which provides fundraising and digital organizing tools for Democratic organizations and campaigns including the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DGA, Organizing for Action, House and Senate candidates and others, announced the development in a blog post Tuesday. GO

Singapore Outlines Plans to Become First "Smart Nation"

Forget smart cities; Singapore has announced detailed plans on how they will become the world's first “smart nation.” The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) revealed their scheme at the CommunicAsia trade show yesterday by having a remote controlled quadcopter deliver a computer to an IDA representative onstage.

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An Ushahidi-Powered Platform Shows "Free" Healthcare In India Comes With Hidden Costs

Two and a half years after a pilot program called Mera Swasthya Meri Aawaz (My Health, My Voice) was launched to record and document the informal fees that plague India's “free” maternal health services in Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of reports have been collected and mapped. The Indian human rights organization Sahayog, which helped launched the initiative, tells techPresident that around 40 public health facilities in two Uttar Pradesh districts have been connected to informal fees, a kind of low-level corruption.

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