Is It Time to Set New Internet Regulations for Political Campaigns?
A California watchdog group has recently released a report calling for more uniform regulations for internet use of “new media” in political campaigns. This is aiming at social media particularly and if people are being paid to tweet or post on behalf of political candidates or their fundraising committees. The commission report also calls for California to update is legislation regarding campaigns and media use so that it includes the latest technologies and media platforms. Could this be the start of a trend? Perhaps all states should look at their campaign regulations and integrate new social media into them. With mid-term elections on the horizon, a surge in social media use by politicians is expected. With the rise in popularity, political candidates are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many other social networks to interact with their audience and convey their campaign message. Although this is a natural evolution in campaign strategy, the same rules guiding traditional media messages should be applied. Social media is the new, more powerful, version of word-of-mouth which makes it more important to adhere to professional behavior guidelines when it comes to a campaign and more importantly, candidate opponents.
Taking the Campaign to Your Fingertips
Thanks to CBS Outdoor, political candidates can now integrate a mobile smartphone application as a part of their campaign. The Campaign Voter App allows users to follow up-to-date news, blogs, photos, and political events right from their fingertips. The application also allows campaign enthusiasts to easily show their support for their candidate with a quick and easy donations button. The application takes about two weeks to set up and complete and comes with a significant cost. Despite this, if used effectively, the return could be well worth the price. As the political arena is becoming more and more heated with debates and uncertainty, word-of-mouth is incredibly effective. 
The success and popularity of social media makes this application a logical step in engaging the audience more effectively and efficiently. Campaign followers conveniently have access to breaking news and information making sure they are up-to-date on a candidate’s platform.Coincidentally, campaign followers also have a unique resource on hand any time they have their mobile phone.Should they find themselves involved in a debate, they can quickly turn to the application for supporting facts to build their argument. Having access to reliable information fast can help spread the campaign message via word-of-mouth. Being able to have supporting evidence will build a stronger case for a candidate and can help gain support in the audience. It can be a powerful tool.
Would you be willing to integrate this application into your next campaign?
Foursquare adds C-SPAN to its team
C-SPAN is the latest network to team up with Foursquare, as Mashable reports. This attempt to boost political education and C-SPAN’s mobile presence will allow visitors checking in to be provided with tips geared towards politics.
For example, they will be presented to watch a documentary on the federal budget when they check in at the capital building in Washington, D.C. Also, a check in at the Supreme Court will afford visitors the opportunity to watch Supreme Court Justice interviews via C-SPAN. Soon, these political education tips will expand to cities outside the D.C. area. This is a great opportunity to use social media to increase the public’s general knowledge about U.S. politics. 
Almost every time a major election comes around, the media constantly points out how low voter-turn out there is and how generally, many people do not have a great deal of knowledge about politics in America. By reaching out through social media, I believe this can be changed, especially by using location-based apps when consumers check in at politically relevant locations.
Twitter takes on health care reform
There’s a lesson to be learned from yesterday’s Twitter discussion on a new statement from the Congressional Budget Office on health care reform. For our purposes, the content of the statement doesn’t matter nearly as much as Republic Mike Pence’s response to it. Somebody forgot to do their fact-checking, and Twitterers weren’t having it. The article below elaborates.
Fun “How the World Works” item in Salon on how the Twittersphere went berserk with CBO scores yesterday. Andrew Leonard writes:
You know you are living in a strange universe when the keyword “CBO” — the abbreviation for Congressional Budget Office — becomes so popular on Twitter that sleazy porn outfits like AdultFriendFinder incorporate the acronym into their tweet spam to drum up business. Call me squeamish, but I find it a little off-putting to have geeky arguments about the budgetary implications of new health care legislation interrupted by nonsense tweets attached to pictures of genitalia in compromising positions. It’s yucky.
There were also hundreds of tweets and countertweets (or counterfactual tweets?) when House Republican Mike Pence asserted via Twitter that the CBO was wrong about Medicare costs ever since the beginning. The problem: there was no CBO when Medicare had its beginning (in 1965). Who knew that America would have so many comedians familiar with the CBO. (Example: @samseder CBO completely underestimated cost of Columbus journey to America.)
Leonard concluded on a more serious note: “The battle over health care reform has fully penetrated the consciousness of the United States, whether expressed out on the street or in the voting booth or via a Twitter riff. History is being made, and we know it.”
The Pentagon’s jumping on the social media bandwagon.
The Pentagon non-classified network will now allow access to social media sites. The agency’s change of heart came after the realization that such sites could be used to better communicate with the public.
Military personnel are still expected to keep sensitive information under wraps and offline (in order to avoid serious blunders such as last week’s Israeli army fiasco).
Laylina Productions offers the full scoop:
In a reversal of previous policies, the Department of Defense recently decided to allow the use of social networks, reports CNET News. The new guidelines will allow for the Pentagon’s non-classified network to access social media tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and blogs, although personnel are still expected to exercise caution and discretion.
The DoD announced in a press release that it now recognizes the role new media could play in facilitating communication between the Pentagon and the general public, although officials will “continue to defend against malicious activity on military information networks.” However, sites containing ethically questionable content, such as pornography or hate crimes, will still be banned.
The new policy does not allow for blanket access to all social media at any time, Reuters explains. Commanders will still have the authority to “temporarily limit” internet access prior to a major military operation, or if bandwidth is in short supply.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Wennergren told Reuters that the DoD’s new goal is to educate their workforce on what information is allowed to be disseminated beyond military personnel.
“There are 10,000 ways [besides social media] people could still compromise a mission,” Wennergren told the wire service. “So part of this is about having a trained workforce that is savvy in how you operate in the information age.”
David Meerman Scott claims on The Huffington Post that the decision pushes the DoD “far out in front” of many American corporations. He explains that many companies view social media as a security threat or drain on productivity, when in fact they “need to understand that this is the way people communicate in 2010.”
Scott also stresses that social media is already an “important force” in military public affairs departments, citing a statement an Air Force captain heading Air Force communications in Haiti: “We’re not launching missiles, we’re launching ideas.”
Karen Wilkinson at Government Technology highlights that the policy “appears to complement the Obama administration’s Open Government Directive,” which emphasizes government transparency.
The DoD senior strategist for emerging media, Jack Holt, told Government Technology that the Pentagon is now trying to view the internet as “a field to be maneuvered,” rather than staying behind a virtual “fortress” and “sticking our head in the sand.”
But Nathan Hodge of the ‘Danger Room’ blog at Wired remains skeptical of the new policy. He refers to an anonymous Air Force network administrator who commented he had to read about the policy shift on the Danger Room, “not through a DoD website.”
Hodge goes on to say that he has received numerous complaints and alerts from readers who claim that they are still unable to access some social media sites. “Those are just a few examples of the yawning gap between theory and practice when it comes to the military’s use of Web 2.0,” he writes.
However, in a different post at Wired, Nathan Hodge highlights a smartphone for Army personnel that could “access everything from technical manuals and maintenance records to maps and cultural intelligence.” The device could also include GPS and tools to help soldiers analyze terrain.
Hodge says the smartphones are part of a Defense project called “Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications,” which is still in the trial phase at Fort Bliss in Texas. Other projects underway include a contest to develop mobile and web applications that could be useful to soldiers, and developing new controllers for unmanned vehicles.
Coinciding with the DoD’s social media announcement, an embarrassing incident occurred within the Israeli military, reports Reuters. Israel was forced to abandon a raid in the Palestinian territories “after a soldier posted details, including time and place,” on Facebook. Some cite this incident as an argument against the expansion of internet access in the US military.
Wanna Skype Tonight?
The ongoing war in Iraq does not appear to be coming to an end anytime soon. Our troops have been out there risking their lives and fighting for our country and their loved ones. Many of the men and women stationed out there are away from their families, boyfriends girlfriends and friends for at least a year a time with maybe one or two weeks of leave to visit, definitely making it hard on the soldier and his or her loved ones. But our soldiers now are in a different league then the men from World War II, Vietnam and even the Gulf War, they have the internet at their disposal. Social media allows them to keep in constant contact with their family and friends.
It may seem insignificant to you and I- we see our friends and family all the time, and may take Facebook and Skype for granted, however, for our troops overseas, it keeps them in the loop. they can see their children grow, they can make Skype dates with their girlfriends and wives and have an instant chat on Facebook or AIM with their friends. The thought that social media was keeping our troops sane and happy never crossed my mind until last week when a friend of mine sent me an instant chat on Facebook. He is stationed in Iraq and will be there for another 10 months, yet we were able to chat and catch up as if he was just around the corner. He was telling me that he Skypes with his wife once a week and loves to see new pictures that she uploads; often times that is the best part of his day. To talk to my friend, and to hear him tell me how much he values social media really hit me hard. It reminded me to not take the information that is passed and the conversations had for granted. It also reminded me of the power that the internet has and how social media is breaking so many barriers that once existed.
5 ways new media is changing politics
A great article from US News and World Report:
The outrage was immediate: The Supreme Court decision that struck down restrictions on the use of corporate funds in political advertising, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is “devastating to the public interest” (President Obama) and a “disastrous rollback” of campaign finance laws (MoveOn.Org) and promises a “windfall” (New York Times) of big-money television ad buys by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.
//But really, does anyone think that in 2020—or maybe even 2015—we’ll still have big-money television ad buys, regardless of who’s paying for them? The magnitude of technological change over the past 10 years has been astonishing; the next 10 will surely be more so. I’m not saying that there won’t be televised political ads at all anymore or that corporations won’t find new and creative ways to spend their money. But the collective outrage focused on a top-down, big-money view of politics, well, that’s so . . . last century. If the goal of television ads is to motivate viewers to vote, volunteer, or give money, there are far better ways to reach people, thanks to the new media.
New social media are already changing the way organizations attract supporters. The American Red Cross raised a record $8 million plus for Haitian relief efforts via Twitter, which, according to the Nielsen Co., has become the top source of discussion about the quake, followed by online video and blogs. The potential mobile universe of grass-roots text messagers is now over 136 million—an emerging market and communications network for nonprofits, small businesses, and political campaigns.
Most Americans have a cellphone and access to a computer these days, and many of us have moved to a much more digital existence. We’ve gained hundreds of cable TV channels and satellite radio stations, millions of bloggers, and literally billions of Web pages. The media today are more diffuse and chaotic than ever.
The result is a new paradigm in political communications, and both parties are using it. Very little of it has to do with expensive political advertising on mass media. Look at your desktop, and you’ll see the ways the new media are changing the political scene from the bottom up:
1. News you can choose: Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, recently told the New Yorker magazine, “With the Internet, with YouTube
, with TiVo, with cable TV, people are selective viewers now. . . . People approach their news consumption the way they approach their iPod: You download the songs you like and listen to them when you want to listen to them.” That affects the way reporters spend their days and the way campaigns craft their message.
2. Share this: Sharing is emerging as a way of distributing the news—tweets from the streets of Iran and from the rubble of Haiti have been retweeted hundreds of times in a new, virtual form of word of mouth. The White House’s Facebook page has nearly half a million fans; its Twitter feed has 1.7 million followers. That’s no surprise: President Obama was the first candidate to announce his White House run via Web video and his vice presidential pick by text message. Don’t forget that Sarah Palin began the whole “death panels” discussion not by giving an interview but by posting the idea on her Facebook page, which then got shared with thousands of friends.
3. Like it: By clicking on a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” icon, constituents can give politicians an instant read on opinions and positions posted on their Web pages, sort of a rudimentary straw poll that is faster, cheaper—but less accurate—than a high-priced telephone poll.
4. Connect with others: During the height of demonstrations in Iran, street organizers tweeted safe locations for impromptu protests—building “flash mobs”—to great effect. Similarly, last-minute organizational details for tea parties, town hall meetings, and even State of the Union-watching events get posted on Facebook pages and tweeted to supporters. It sure beats passing out fliers at subway stops, as political organizers used to do.
5. Donate now: John McCain first harnessed the Internet for fundraising after his 2000 New Hampshire primary victory; by 2007, Ron Paul raised $4 million online in one day, despite being largely ignored by the media. Barack Obama raised hundreds of millions online over the course of his presidential run, and in just the last two weeks of the senatorial race in Massachusetts, Scott Brown raised $12 million from 157,000 donors, according to online consultants Mindy Finn and Patrick Ruffini, who helped Brown. Most politicians would rather have thousands of individual givers than a few big corporate donors, and the Internet makes that much easier.
Politicians have long sought to go around the mainstream press filter—from fireside chats, to whistlestop tours, to snail-mail newsletters—but the new media take it a step further by even more directly connecting them with voters. And the technology is moving quickly. Last fall, a Conservative Talking Points iPhone app came out; a few days ago the White House unveiled its new iPhone app, with live-streaming video of presidential events. Who knows what’s next?
The Internet “has reorganized the way Americans do everything—including elect their leaders. Candidates who would have had no chance before the Internet can now overcome huge odds, with the people they energize serving as the backbone of their campaign,” Finn and Ruffini wrote in the Washington Post. To me, it’s a good thing that the new media give a bottom-up boost to candidates facing overwhelming odds. And that far outweighs the supposedly devastating effect of a few big corporate donors buying top-down television ads.
Lessig Launches Change Congress: Political Reform a la Creative Commons and Wikipedia
Here is a post from Andy Carvin on Politics 2.0….
Today at the National Press Club, Professor Lawrence Lessig launched the Change Congress project. Created in conjunction with Joe Trippi, the project intends to employ the strengths of the Internet to end the impact of PACs and lobbyists on congressional policymaking. What’s really fascinating about this initiative is that he’s taking the lessons learned from creating the Creative Commons copyright initiative and applying it to political reform in a way that’s never been done before.
In his speech, Lessig gave several examples of policy changes that should have taken place but didn’t because of the influence of money, such as combating global warming or limiting the recommended allotment of sugar in our diets. These are policies that should have been no-brainers, but industry influence upended the process. He noted that when the country’s forefathers talked about independence, it wasn’t just about independence from Britain, but independence from improper influence as well. In that sense, he argued, their goal of achieving independence has failed.
But Lessig thinks it’s still possible to remove this dependence between Congress and money once and for all. The Change Congress project will take a three-step approach to the issue.
First, he wants members of Congress and the public to go online and pledge their support for up to four different goals: no longer accepting money from lobbyists and PACs; banning earmarks; supporting public financing of campaigns; and achieving total transparency of how Congress works. Users will be able to do this in the same way you select a Creative Commons license for your website. Their website will have a form that lets you select which ones you support, and it’ll generate a code you can put on your own site. This code will contain metadata driven by the semantic Web – essentially, a collection of URLs, each defining which of the policy goals you support. (update, 4:20pm: when I wrote this paragraph, the site’s badge generator wasn’t up and running yet, but now that it is, it seems that the code generated for users doesn’t contain Semantic Web metadata yet. Update 4:37pm: I’m now told that Semantic Web metadata might be rolled into the badges very soon, possibly later this evening or tomorrow; a volunteer is working on the code and hopes they’ll use it. -ac)
Embedding this code into your website, whether you’re a policymaker, a candidate or a member of the public, will let them reach step number two: tracking who supports what. In the same way that search engines can pick up websites that employ different Creative Commons licenses, Change Congress will be able to pick up which sites support each of the four policy goals. They’ll then be able to map out where support is strongest and where it’s weakest. Then, they’ll deploy crowdsourcing, just like on Wikipedia, to get an army of volunteers delving into the details to see who’s just pledged support and who’s actually supporting the cause in measurable ways. This information, too, will be mapped for all to see and scrutinize.
Step number three will be to employ these tools for raising money. The public will be able to make small donations – even just five or 10 dollars – to candidates that share the same policy reform beliefs as they do. This will allow for grassroots fundraising to take place, not unlike Emily’s List or the Obama campaign. Taken all together, he describes his project as a “Silicon Valley approach” to policy reform.
Lessig admitted there will be naysayers, particularly those who feel there are other problems more important that reforming Congress and the flow of money. To them, he gave the example of the alcoholic. An alcoholic faces many problems – loss of family, employment, health, etc – but none of them can be solved until the underlying problem – dependence on alcohol – is addressed first. To Lessig, before we can solve all the major policy issues of our day, we must first eliminate Congress’ dependence on money and outside influence. Once this can be done, the real work of implementing important policy solutions can take place. Harnessing the power of the Web and its seemingly endless community of concerned citizens, he may just be on to something here.
New White House Blog Published First Post
Great post on Politics 2.0 by Bill Ives
I have written about the Obama campaign a number of times see for example, Update from the Obama Answer Center – Web 2.0 and US Elections. I wrote in this post, “that it will be great if the US government adopts these practices to better connect with citizens. Perhaps lessons learned during the campaign on such issues as effective web practices to increase citizen engagement can be adopted by the government. There is great potential here. I think it is demonstrates some of the ways the new web can be used to increase engagement and the innovation evidenced by this campaign.”
I was pleased to see that the first blog post, Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov, went up on the new White blog even before the official oath of office and there is a Director of New Media for the White House, Macon Phillips who wrote the post. He said that the initial new media efforts will center around three priorities:
“Communication — This site will feature timely and in-depth content meant to keep everyone up-to-date and educated. Check out the briefing room, keep tabs on the blog (RSS feed) and take a moment to sign up for e-mail updates…
Transparency — The President’s executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning…
Participation — Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that…” There is a link to a form for providing input.
Macon said that they would put up the video and the full text of President Obama’s Inaugural Address. I look forward to hearing more. Blogs have come a long way since 2004. I hope that this is the case for our government in both parties as some of the principles of the new web of transparency and participation appear to be adopted by the new administration. See Rob Patterson’s post for more, Post-inauguration thoughts about social media. He said, “The Obama administration is going to do for social media what Teddy Roosevelt did for the Press and FDR did for radio but more so.” It will be interesting to see what happens.
CIA Invests in Social Media Monitoring Firm
October 19th, 2009 | by Jennifer Van Grov
But today we’re learning from Wired that the CIA’s technology arm In-Q-Tel has invested an undisclosed sum in Visible Technologies, a firm that provides software to companies like Microsoft for social media monitoring.
According to Wired, the investment is “part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using “open source intelligence” – information that’s publicly available, but often hidden.” The current plan is for the CIA to use the technology to monitor International intelligence shared in public channels to get an early edge on what’s being shared and communicated by influential voices. In addition, funds from the deal apparently will be allocated towards enhancing the foreign language monitoring capabilities of Visible Technologies .From the report:
“Of course, such a tool can also be pointed inward, at domestic bloggers or tweeters. Visible already keeps tabs on web 2.0 sites for Dell, AT&T and Verizon. For Microsoft, the company is monitoring the buzz on its Windows 7 rollout. For Spam-maker Hormel, Visible is tracking animal-right activists’ online campaigns against the company.
“Anything that is out in the open is fair game for collection,” says Steven Aftergood, who tracks intelligence issues at the Federation of American Scientists. But “even if information is openly gathered by intelligence agencies it would still be problematic if it were used for unauthorized domestic investigations or operations. Intelligence agencies or employees might be tempted to use the tools at their disposal to compile information on political figures, critics, journalists or others, and to exploit such information for political advantage. That is not permissible even if all of the information in question is technically ‘open source.’”
While we’re not exactly thrilled by the idea of the CIA paying attention to our every tweet, we do think that it is a rather obvious next step for the intelligence agency. We can only hope they’ll use their eye on the social sphere for good.
Image from practicalowl on Flickr
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