election08 – Page 2 – The Nexus of 2024

Get FISA Right: Paging Clay Shirky

Jul 13, 2008

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by

in political, Professional, social computing

Wow, what a weekend. Friday, the Get FISA Right campaign was on CNN a couple of times (including a brief clip by me on American Morning that also got picked up internationally and a great discussion of Obama & Get FISA Right Activism by Ari Melber on CNN headline news where he challenged the left/right…

The first thing to do: set up a wiki

Jul 1, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing, Tales from the Net

I remember hearing Zack Rosen of CivicSpace starting his talk about the team that put together the Katrina people finder by saying “one of the first things we did was set up a wiki” and it really struck a chord. As an effort like Senator Obama – Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right…

“What’s an activism campaign these days without a Facebook presence?”

Jun 29, 2008

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by

jon

in political, Professional, Uncategorized

Mail to the Senator Obama – Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right mailing list. See the wiki for more context. 2200 members and growing… Update, July 1: 8600+ members on myBO — moving into #2 in the top 10 groups. Coverage in The Nation, Wired, Slashdot, The New Right, and zillions of other…

A proposal for OpenLeft: mutual guest-blogging

Jun 11, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing

Update, June 14: posted on OpenLeft. Update, June 21: first round on track for week of June 30! Thanks to all for the feedback and review! We propose that OpenLeft feature 5-7 guest bloggers each week, prioritizing diverse voices and perspectives not usually heard on the front page. OpenLeft front page posters will reciprocate, by…

NYTimes criticizes, reinforces NYTimes smear on Obama, Muslims

Jun 2, 2008

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by

jon

in political

An op-ed piece by Edward Luttwak the New York Times last week relied on a very questionable description of Obama as a “Muslim apostate” to argue that he’d have a hard time reaching out to Muslim leaders and would be at risk of assassination if he visited any countries with a lot of Muslims. It…

CFP08: trip report

May 25, 2008

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by

jon

in Personal, political, privacy, Professional, social computing

Part 1 of a series Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2008 ended with me presenting Dear Potus 08 and circulating the letter to the presidential candidates for signatures, and then a closing plenary by Clay Shirky (notes below). It was exhiliarating as always, and I’m now simultaneously exhausting, revved up, and suffering from jet lag. So…

E-Deceptive Campaign Practices: “Elections 2.0”

May 18, 2008

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by

jon

in political, Professional, social computing, Uncategorized

I’m at a tutorial on Tuesday discussing “elections 2.0” at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, and one of the things I want to cover is Web 2.0 technologies’ positive role in countering deceptive campaign practices. I’m planning on using some examples from the Obama activism work I’ve been doing on Facebook, as well as…

“Where do you get your political news?”

May 11, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing

when reading blogs, make a point to get a range of perspectives, starting with those that are shut out from the mainstream news. Reviewing an earlier draft of Allies in the blogosphere, one of my friends asked me for more details on this. Rather than bury it in an comment, I figured that it was…

Hillary Clinton Facebook group overrun by troll mob

May 10, 2008

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by

jon

in political, Professional, social computing, Tales from the Net

The Hillary Clinton group got overrun with trolls last night. A Facebook bug â€” thatâ€™s been reported and unfixed since February â€” prevented the admins from being able to react. I saved a snapshot of a series of 25 threads with sexist (and in many cases racist) subjects; I won’t quote them, but trust me,…

This just in: Obama defriends Wright on Facebook!

Apr 30, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing, Tales from the Net

Andy Borowitz breaks the story in the Huffington Post: In an act that campaign insiders said indicated an irrevocable break with his former pastor, Sen. Barack Obama today de-friended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Facebook. It looks like all the fears about the divisiveness within the Democratic party are, if anything, understated. I didn’t realize…

Supreme Court Legalizes Voter Suppression

Apr 29, 2008

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by

jon

in political

The headline’s from Project Vote’s post on OpenLeft, which also has a great quote from their board member Donna Massey: The real purpose of strict photo voter ID rules is to make it more difficult for some Americans to vote. It’s the voters who are less likely to vote who are also less likely to…

“Election falsification” and other voting issues in Ohio (updated)

Mar 11, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social sciences

Update, March 27: The Columbus Dispatch reports statewide officials say prosecution for Limbaugh is very unlikely: “lying through your teeth and being stupid isn’t a crime.” Ari Melber’s Limbaugh’s Lying Voters Under Investigation on The Nation’s Campaign Matters blog has a lot more. Kim Zetter’s The Mysterious Case of Ohio’s Voting Machines, on Wired’s THREAT…

Cognitive diversity and the 2008 US election

Mar 9, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social sciences, Tales from the Net

Originally posted as a comment about The Day After. There’s an interesting thread started on Feb 8 in the One Million Strong for Barack group on Facebook, How many Political Cards Hillary has played and whats more to come? I went back and looked at it today seeing how accurate it was; here was my…

Facebook flakiness: reliability problems, or an attack?

Mar 8, 2008

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by

jon

in political, Professional, social sciences

Facebook once again is in the middle of major flakiness right now: links to nowhere, spontaneous logouts. The best thing to do when something like this happens is to treat it as a sign that it’s a good time to take a break from Facebook for a little while. So I decided to write this…

Community defense vs. trolls in the One Million Strong for Barack Facebook group

Mar 3, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing, Tales from the Net

Like a lot of political sites these days, the Barack Obama Facebook page and One Million Strong for Barack group have been suffering from an infestation of trolls and hate speech. Obama supporters, like others, use Facebook to help with “get out the vote” work (for example posting links to information about polling places) and…

Voting rights victories in LA County and Texas!

Feb 27, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing, Tales from the Net

Update, March 6: democracy largely (albeit imperfectly) prevailed in the LA County mess; 47,153 â€œdouble bubbleâ€ votes were counted in Los Angeles County. What about Ohio? We shall see … Julia Rosen’s Victory post yesterday on Courage Campaign’s blog announced Dean Logan’s agreement to count every possible LA County decline-to-state ballot, and followup mail from…

Facebook Barack Obama discussion board has been deleted!

Feb 20, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social computing, Uncategorized

The discussion board on the Barack Obama discussion page is now *gone* — not just unlinked, vanished. If you follow a link to it, it takes you to your home page instead. Sigh. Looks like they’re choosing fear over hope. Any bookmarks or links won’t work. I’m sure it’s around on backup somewhere, so hopefully…

Facebook: censoring political speech

Feb 19, 2008

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by

jon

in political, Professional, social computing, social sciences, Tales from the Net

Update on February 22: How to respond when Facebook censors your political speech is up on Tales from the Net and Wired’s How-to Wiki and links back to comments in this thread. Alas, the Facebook Barack Obama discussion board was deleted on February 20, so many of the links here go off to oblivion. If…

What democracy looks like in the US, February 2008

Feb 12, 2008

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by

jon

in political, social sciences

Update, March 6: democracy largely (albeit imperfectly) prevailed in the LA County mess; 47,153 â€œdouble bubbleâ€ votes were counted in Los Angeles County. What about Ohio? We shall see …

“Double Bubble Trouble”: Massive voter disenfranchisement in California — and Washington?

Feb 7, 2008

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by

jon

in political

The LA Registrar of Voters says it may not be possible to determine voter intent! Please sign Courage Campaign’s “Count every vote” petition asking for a full recount! 25,000 signatures so far; latest update and some discussion about “intent” on Courage Campaign’s page here. PeteTV has a video and transcript at So this is what…

Tag: election08