Ashton Kutcher… in Russia
Actor and web savvy actist Ashton Kutcher is stirring things up in Russia. He says he will “crowd source” questions about The Kremlin’s push to develop a Russian Silicon Valley to his 4.5 Twitter fans. Kutcher has become a very active part of the US delegation of technology and social media team in recent months and is one of the leaders that arrived in Moscow as part of the White House efforts to improve Russia.
The actor has goals to “translate the Russian voice to an American audience” to help Russia build its own high tech center. The Kremlin is in agreement and would like to develop a Russia’s own Silicon Valley to help modernize their struggling economy that depends mainly on energy exports.
The US delegation strongly urged the Russian government, businessmen and students to use social media to tackle problems like human trafficking and corruption.
I remember when Ashton Kutcher’s show Punk’d came out and no one took him seriously, and now he is travelling to Russia with the Whitehouse to help a struggling government. We all have to grow up sometimes I guess. But in all seriousness, I love what Ashton Kutcher is doing, he is a man who understands the power of social media and technology and is using his knowledge, experience and popularity to really make a difference.
If You Can’t Say Something Nice…
Labour chairman David Wright Labour MP Party of Telford, allegedly used the words “Scum sucking pig” in a Tweet, to describle the Tories, (conservative party in the UK). Currently he is claiming that a third party tinkered with his account adding the words scum sucking- to what should have read “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.”
EU politics 2.0: Getting the citizen into European democracy
Julien Frisch, September 3, 2009 – Personal Democracy Forum
The European Union is a proto-democratic polity, focused on the city of Brussels, dispersed over 27 member states and 500 million citizens, based on a story of overcoming centuries of violence and held together by complex administrative procedures and a small number of Europeanised elites willing to invest time and effort in bridging the gaps that are still obvious.
Genuine European Union politics are limited to politicians, officials, and diplomats within the core EU institutions like the European Commission (the supranational political administration of the EU), the EU Council (where the 27 member states are represented), and the European Parliament, which has been newly elected in June and just re-started its activities.
Outside Brussels, these EU politics have always been low key, hardly noticed by anyone not involved in European administrative co-operation, EU-related lobbying, or rare transnational meetings of political associations with a European agenda. The best example was the European Parliament elections this year that passed almost unnoticed by the larger public.
In this centralised, Brussels-focused context, participation of individual citizens in EU politics was close to impossible. Yet, web 2.0 is offering new channels for involvement of ordinary citizens – and we are ready to use them.
When I say “we”, I am referring to a small but growing group of European citizens inside and outside Brussels using blogs, online social networks, and Twitter to communicate, discuss, and organise activities that are not born within the institutional setting of the EU – but still related to questions of pan-European interest.
Most of us are part of the Generation 2.0, but in the end this is more than a generational issue. We don’t want to accept the old top-down politics and we are trying to overcome a European perspective that doesn’t treat us as citizens but as simple beneficiaries of policies made in our so-called “best interest”.
Over the last year, there has been a rising amount of interaction between us, and especially the use of Twitter has finally brought some dynamics into EU politics that appear very static from an outsider perspective.
A good example was the European Parliament election night (7 June 2009): On that night, despite the lack of general interest in these elections, a significant number of people from most member states discussed the election results under the #eu09 and #ep09 hashtags (that a smaller circle of people like us had been using already before) in all major and many minor EU languages – still unthinkable at the 2004 elections.
What we see is the development of a slowly growing Euroblogosphere (summarised on the still developing platform bloggingportal.eu) complemented by a Eurotwittersphere that involves even more individuals (political citizens, journalists, scientists, EU officials, lobbyists, and politicians) who do not write blogs.
Together, we are trying to create a (hyper-)linked European public sphere, researching and spreading information that remained unnoticed so far, thereby creating publicly visible European debates that go beyond the old-style closed-door politics that still rule the Brussels world.
But I don’t want to create a false image:
These developments are still very young, they are not straightforward, and they include a very limited number of people that are already part of the Europeanised elites I have mentioned at the beginning of the article. We are starting what needs to become bigger, we are testing in how far modern technologies are able to spice up EU politics, and we are creating a basis that might be helpful in the future.
This is nothing but a beginning. What we will have to do is to figure out ways to get more citizens into the European democracy, extending our limited circle by creating communication networks and communities in which European politics can be both debated and influenced.
However, one of the major obstacles compared to the USA is the existence of 23 official languages within the European Union. Creating transnational and translingual debates around political processes – that in addition are also largely opaque and poorly communicated – under these conditions is not trivial; the evolution of common blogosphere hardly possible.
So we will have to find creative ideas and creative individuals to overcome these obstacles. But many of us are ready to accept the challenge, and already over the coming year I expect several initiatives in this regard.
From now on, I will use the possibilities of the Personal Democracy Forum blog to discuss with you such issues related to European politics 2.0; I will present my own ideas and the ideas of others, looking forward to input from you who are reading inside and outside Europe!
(The author is a Euroblogger writing about EU and European politics on his blog “Julien Frisch – Watching Europe”.)
An interview with Tom Watson MP, Britain’s ‘blogging Minister’
Here is a post from, Dominic Campbell of the Personal Democracy Forum, featuring an interview with Tom Watson MP, Britain’s ‘blogging Minister. October 28, 2009
Tom Watson MP will be speaking at next month’s Personal Democracy Forum Europe in Barcelona. In this short interview we give you a quick run down on Britain’s first blogging minister, the man credited with bringing digital engagement to government in the UK.
Who is Tom Watson?
That’s the deepest question of the lot! My life hit a crossroads at a young age. The early 80’s was not a great time to be a teenager. With mass youth unemployment, poor training and an economy on the skids, I joined the Labour party to change the world.
The path I chose not to take was the one where I followed a personal interest in coding – I spent most of my spare time on the ZX81, BBC Micro and later the Spectrum. I sometimes wonder whether I made the right choice.
How was it that you came to be the ‘blogging minister’ in 2003?
I’d come across these things called weblogs through reading the Guardian site. Rececca’s Pocket was the first site I visited and I realised that the technology existed to hold a conversations. I no longer needed to be on broadcast only.
What was your vision / dream back then and how has it changed or developed since?
To publish and stimulate a discussion, really excited me. Back in 2003, political blogging hadn’t really matured. It was a bit like being on the frontier – being shot at from all sides. To be honest, I was a bit sporadic in the way I approached blogging, so my six year experiment has only had limited success.
Whether we’re talking about We.Gov, Gov20 or digital engagement (here in the UK), what does it all mean to you?
Oh, that’s easy for me. It’s about wider participation. Simple as that. Governments listening – and learning.
What was your proudest achievement within government? And since?
Hmmm. I’m proud that the Power of Information Taskforce set and agenda that is still being acted upon. I’ve not had much of a chance to be a backbencher yet but I intend to be a very loud voice for our digital pioneers – that doesn’t just include e-democracy types but also gamers, open source campaigners and digital rights activists.
Is the bureaucratic culture the single biggest barrier to adoption and is it something that can ever be cracked?
Yes it can be cracked but It requires strong leadership from politicians and, in particular, senior civil servants. I’d give both party leaders an improving 7 out of 10 for their leadership right now. Senior civil servants score much lower!
Next year there will be national and local elections in the UK. What are the major opportunities and risks for politicians in taking part in this agenda? What would your advice to your colleagues be?
I think we’ll miss the great opportunities for web 2.0 in the next elections. Sure, parties will produce widgets to get their message out in clever ways. They’ll use digital tools to organise. But they’re not going to let go like they need too. The election after next will be the interesting one for this space.
Individual MPs and councillors are beginning to use the tools to engage and collaborate though. They’re the people we need to support and encourage I think. I’m most excited about hyperlocal communities finding their voice using social media tools. They’re the real pioneers.
Where next for both Tom Watson and the digital engagement agenda in the UK?
Oh, I’m going to be banging a loud drum from the back benchers. European copyright reform, global digital “wows” like every school in Africa getting a broadband connection, the global free expression movement, taking digital inclusion seriously. There’s a lifetime’s agenda to campaign for. I can’t wait.
Has Politics 2.0 arrived in Portugal?
Sergio Bastos wrote a insightful post on September 3, 2009, on the integration of Politics 2.0 into Portugal.
Portugal is living an Elections year. During 2009, European Parliament elections took place on the 7th of June. The Legislative elections will be held on September 27th and on October 11th the Portuguese people will choose their representatives of local governments.
Despite interest that “Politics 2.0” has been generating on media and online, there aren’t many significant developments in political technologies for and by the people. As in rest of the world, Barack Obama’s elections strategy was a closely watched case study that inspired great interest here. Indeed, there were reports saying that Blue State Digital was hired by PS (Socialist Party in government) to implement actions online, a fact that was soon revealed to be not really true. The national and Brazilian spin doctors are still in charge of political marketing strategies.
With a month or so to Legislative Elections 2009, parties have been doing some online actions, but for the most part prefer the old way to interact with public: gatherings, outdoors, travelling on the street to talk with citizens (and TV cameras). Their main actions online have been:
- Meetings with bloggers and Web influencers by major parties (PS and PSD, the opposition party);
- Although there are many politicians and parties with accounts on Twitter (check Twitica), taking a look at the most popular parties’ Internet sites, we have an impression that they don’t use social networks at all. The better practices are from minor new parties like MEP and MMS, and the legislative elections portal created by PSD (Politica de Verdade). This is perhaps not surprising, as upstart parties have more to gain from going online, while the major parties may fear the inevitable loss of control that comes with the territory.
- Most major online campaigning is being done by youth or “independent” citizens linked to the political parties in blogosphere, Twitter and other social networks. For example, Papa MyZena (linked to PSD) and SIMplex (linked to PS) both say that are not affiliated to parties but discuss right and left political views and some persons have relations with parties;
- Vídeo and audio sharing is part of the latest campaign innovations. PS has created MovTV, PSD and minor parties have a Youtube channel. In rare occasions there have been streaming video from events and even some interactions with online questioners;
- PS has a kind of social network called MyMov, where people can, for example, expose their ideas.
- Some political parties also have actions on site to recollect private funds for campaigning. Political parties are public finance in Portugal.
The press, TV and radio media have been covering Politics 2.0 topic with some debates and reports. A good media initiative is Eleições 2009, a blog from Público newspaper that brings together various bloggers with all kind of political perspectives and expressing different political views.
Besides Twitica, another site is an interesting tool for citizens. Through a questionnaire, Bússola Eleitoral predicts the political party that fits best with the person who answers a series of questions.
Bottom line: politics 2.0 in Portugal is an early stage. Technically, there are innovations but there are no trends or viral behaviours that have really been embraced by large numbers of citizens. After all, trust matters and online networks are only a tool that political parties have to guarantee with actions while on power positions.
Twitter Amplifies Obama’s Muted Iran Policy
Twitter got an interesting tech support call from a highly unique customer today: The Obama Administration, via the U.S. State department, which reportedly asked the microblogging service to delay a system upgrade in order to maintain the tsunami of history-making tweets about and emanating from Iran via Twitter’s #iranelection topic in the wake of the country’s highly disputed presidential election. It’s unclear if high-ranking members of President Obama’s team were directly involved in this Twitter request; given that this is by far the country’s most Web 2.0-centric Administration, however, it’s possible they were. (Last April, the State Department included Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in a sponsored delegation of technology executives to neighboring Iraq, in order to show, among other applications, a spokesman explained, how “new technologies can be used to build local capacity, foster greater transparency and accountability, build upon anti-corruption efforts.”)
In any case, it’s fascinating to contrast this behind-the-scenes activity with the official statements coming from the White House. President Obama’s first public statement on the Iran turmoil yesterday was muted and highly cautious, taking pains (in light of historic U.S. interference in Iran) to emphasize that his Adminstration respects Iranian sovereignty and self-rule. (Critics have instead urged him to condemn Iran’s repressive tactics.) At the same time, however, his State Department is actively working with the central conduit of protest against Iran’s government: Twitter. As the President put it yesterday, “[W]e do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.”
Russian President Launches YouTube Channel
Barack Obama has it, Nicolas Sarkozy has it, Pope Benedict XVI has it, and now Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has one: his very own YouTube channel.
The channel is located over at www.youtube.com/kremlin, and its main purpose is to reach out to youth. Medvedev covers a wide array of topics: the first video on the site addresses schoolchildren and talks about good neighborly ties, while in the latest Medvedev talks about the Second World War and its outcome.
Interestingly enough, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin does not yet have his YouTube (
) channel, although he makes up for it by regularly appearing on Russian television.
Social Media and Politics – From Obama to Iran and Onward…
Here is a great post by Rob Paterson on Social Media and Politics – From Obama to Iran and Onward…
What is democracy? Is it just a vote every 4 years? Is that all the citizen has?
Who ensures that even that limited moment of choice and opinion is secure and trustworthy. How are the votes counted? Who ensures that the people have even voted? You don’t have to be living in Iran to wonder about that!
How does a candidate get chosen? In the west it depends on a party and immense sums of money. In other places, the regime makes the call. It is all but impossible to become powerful without having made a deal with the in group whether this is in Iran and the Mullahs or anywhere.
What might democracy become in the age of Social Media?
Could President Obama have gathered the financial and voter support in his campaign without it? I think that it would have been unlikely. Are most politicians responding to what happened in that election?
I don’t think so. For I think that they miss the point.
The tools of social media are just that. Tools!
The point is that to engage the people you have to have a cause that strikes to their heart. Obama had that.
What the tools do is to make a real cause too powerful for the status quo to push under the rug.
In Iran, people are risking and losing their lives for change. In the before Social Media times such as at Tianemen Square, the regime can and did utterly squash dissent. I don’t think that this is possible today if the cause is well enough supported. Yes, the regime can set up a massacre that may stop the demonstrations. But the legitimacy of the regime will be ended. Their only chance then will be to become a North Korea or an Burma – a true pariah. The story will not end there.
The tools and the supporting global community are enabling the story to be told. The world is a witness.
There is also another aspect that I see. Our response to the traditional media is usually helplessness and then numbness. We see terrible events but we can do nothing but feel bad. Traditional media is so one way and so passive.
But people outside of Iran not only know what is going on but many are actively engaged in helping or in providing emotional support. This was even true for the Obama campaign. Millions of non Americans became personally engaged in the election in a way not possible by simply reading the paper or watching TV.
The Obama campaign – but regretfully not the Obama administration – and the Iranian push-back – will surely be seen in retrospect as a Tipping Point in the evolution of democracy. What will happen, I cannot know yet.
But the regimes everywhere will have to take note. There is a line of self interest and oppression that cannot be crossed. For if it is, the “Sleeper will awake”.
The voice of the people is no longer restricted to the ballot box. No longer subject to the control of the ballot box. No longer subject to the needs of party affiliation or millions of campaign dollars.
I don’t know how this will play out but it sure sounds more democratic to me.
Business/Tech/Real Estate Social Media Meets Politics: Pols Chasing Publicity Find Web Waters Welcoming
Here is the first of 3 great blog articles on Social Media & Politics, written by Jackson West of SF Appeal Online Newspaper.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other popular sites for publishing online have become ubiquitous in the news media, if not in everyone’s actual day to day lives. Recently, public officials have successfully made it onto the bandwagon by adopting these tools in their campaigns, fundraising, volunteer recruitment and, of course, garnering publicity. But are these tools truly being used to connect directly to voters and their concerns, or are they just another way to campaign?
Barack Obama certainly made hay online, with plaudits, publicity and private contributions rolling in over the course of the campaign thanks to a popular Twitter stream, Facebook chatter, and a social network, MyBarackObama.com, powered by software from local company Six Apart. Yet once elected, the new media music died. His Twitter stream went silent for weeks, and only four updates have been made since election day.
Local politicians who are “tweeting,” or regularly posting messages to Twitter, include State Attorney General Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, State Senator Leland Yee, State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, and San Francisco Board of Supervisors Clerk Angela Calvillo, on the Board’s behalf. Befitting a brand new form of communication, they’re all using it differently. The one common thread is that they would presumably all be relatively easy to reach, especially by a constituent and member of the press.
Adriel Hampton works as an investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s office and has kicked off a congressional campaign for California’s tenth district. An avid user of Twitter personally, he maintains a profile on Facebook, and is an active participant in a social network called GovLoop, where public employees are exploring ways to better connect public service with private taxpayers. It was at his urging that the City Attorney’s office created an account on Twitter.
“We’re trying to be transparent and apolitical in a way that advances the public interest, the public’s right to know and builds public trust in the office,” Hampton said of the tone and impetus of discussion on the site. Certainly transparency and authenticity seem to be two benefits most often cited by proponents using these new communications tools in government.
Some of the decisions made San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his large communications staff and coterie of campaign aides seem to belie those types of good intentions. Newsom recently used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to officially announce his entry into California’s 2010 gubernatorial election, garnering much media coverage and a few donations in the process.
Newsom’s aides in City Hall and his campaign team have been using these and other online tools for some time, but his office is not known for embracing radical transparency. For instance, while Newsom’s account often features replies to other Twitter users, responding to questions from the press is another matter. Repeated emails to his press secretary Nathan Ballard went unanswered (as did an email to Newsom’s likely gubernatorial opponent Brown).
Maybe the emails got lost in the shuffle. So why not play along and get in touch using Twitter? Because asking questions publicly using the service’s reply feature has gotten reporters in hot water.
“We don’t ask the mayor questions on his Twitter feed,” said San Francisco Chronicle city desk editor Audrey Cooper. There’s no need, she argued. “A press office has a lot of different ways to communicate with the press.” And they probably won’t start any time soon, especially in the wake of San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter Steven T. Jones’ experience.
Having been blocked from accessing Newsom’s updates after he asked a question publicly, Jones was accused of “flaming” or harassing the mayor online, and declared the equivalent of a -DCohn1 5/3/09 2:05 AM “troll” by Ballard. Not that it came as a particular surprise to Jones. “We’ve literally had the office door shut in our face before,” he said of his paper’s relationship with the mayor’s communications team.
So tools like Twitter don’t necessarily level the playing field for access, but they do offer an opportunity to make an end run around tough questions from critics and appeal directly to potential supporters without having to go through traditional media channels.
Tomorrow, in part two of this three part series, we’ll take a look at how well online tools work for organizing and funding campaigns. A candidate who could win office with only passionate volunteers and lots of small donations would presumably prove less beholden to the status quo of institutional support and corporate interests. Sounds great in theory, but does it work in practice?
Social Media And Politics in Canada (4/21/09)
Here is a great presentation at Miles S. Nadal Management Centre in the Ernst & Young Tower of the Toronto Dominion Centre on April 21, 2009 to marketing managers on the use of social media in politics.
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