Citizen 2.0

A week in e-democracy: from the Swedish citizen tweet to anonymous threats

The world's most democratic Twitter experiment in Sweden?
BBC relays this amazing initiative launched by Visit Sweden with the Swedish Institute [governmental agency for the promotion of Sweden]. They have ceded control of the Twitter account @Sweden to a panel of Swedish since mid-December. What is undoubtedly a clever publicity stunt does also appear to be the "democratic experiment" it claims to be. Tweets are not censored and are by no means all positive. So, democracy or publicity?

London defend its reuse of electronic vote counting
The Greater London Authority has defended its reuse of electronic vote counting for the 2012 mayoral and assembly member elections following the renewal of allegations from one analyst that such systems are less secure and not worth their cost. The vote will be complex: on 3 May, Londoners will cast four votes on three ballot papers, each using a different electoral system. They will elect the Mayor of London and 25 members of the London Assembly for 14 constituency contests and a proportional representation system for 11 London-wide members. If turnout is similar to 2008, a total of almost 8 million ballots will be counted. “We think this marginal price difference in 2012 is a price worth paying for a quicker and more accurate count”, Euan Holloway, spokesperson for London Elects, told E-Government Bulletin this month. A traditional manual count would take four days, but an electronic count can produce a result within 12 hours, he said.

Anonymous' reaction raises many questions
Retaliation launched by the anonymous, which blocked many websites of government agencies, media or cultural industries in the world, after the close of the Megaupload platform by the American justice, raises many question about the powers and the might of anonymous. Despite the charges against Megaupload (the indictment is available online), accused of organizing a "Mega Conspiracy, criminal organization with global ramifications," why the anonymous set themselves as judges? In democracy, these attacks should not it concern us?

# Jan25, like a digital Bastille day?
According to LSE scholar Charlie Beckett, quoted by France 24, January 25 provided the Bastille moment of the Egyptian revolution, meaning it created a symbol that was simple and potent enough for everyone to rally behind it – much as the fall of the Bastille prison had done for the French Revolution in 1789. One year after the beginning of the egyptian revolution, the hashtag #Jan25 became the symbol of an entire movement and perhaps the most famous hashtag ever on micro-blogging site Twitter.

India Prime Minister joins Twitter
Or rather, his press service, which has just opened an account @PMOIndia (Prime Minister Office of India), showing its determination to approach the people. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is indeed often criticized for its inaccessibility. Journalists are clearly the target, in a country with less than 10% of Internet users, according to the Canadian Sherbrooke University. To read in India Today.

A week in e-Democracy: SOPA/PIPA vs lobbying 2.0

SOPA/PIPA vs lobbying 2.0
Have we seen this January 18 the first victory of the web players web against the major traditional pressure groups accustomed to the corridors of power in Washington? Mobilization of key pl a yers against anti-piracy law SOPA and PIPA (what you need to know by CBS news), has created the first digital strike of hundreds of websites, including the English version of Wikipedia or the blogging platform Wordpress. It has been successful since a score of members changed their minds. The debate is not only American, and websites like Reporters Without Borders took part in the digital blackout. As emphasized Philippe Aigrain, founding member of the Quadrature du Net (French website on rights and freedom on Internet), "we must consider these two texts as symptomatic of a general trend of legislators around the world to set up tighter control on the Internet in order to enjoy economic interests at the expense of individual liberties. "

Obama Administration Responds to We the People Petitions on SOPA
The White House used the e-petition website, "We The People" to try to defuse a controversy more and more threatening. The petition against SOPA has earned tens of thousands of signatures and the White House took the pole to its position, explaining that the proposal is not satisfactory, and urging users to take direct action to improve "Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right. Already, many members of Congress are asking for public input around the issue. We are paying close attention to those opportunities, as well as to public input to the Administration. The organizer of this petition and a random sample of the signers will be invited to a conference call to discuss this issue further with Administration officials and soon after that, we will host an online event to get more input and answer your questions"

In South Korea, the opposition leader elected head of his party by mobile phone
The year 2012 will be an election year in South Korea with general elections in April and presidential election in December. In the country which was the first in the world in 2002 to elect a President with a lot of supporters on Internet, it will be interesting to study new IT uses. It has also started on 15 January. Former South Korean prime minister Han Myeong-sook was elected chairwoman of the liberal main opposition Democratic United Party for a mandate of two years, with 24.5 percent of the vote from a 800,000-strong electoral college. What makes this election unique is that people has been allowed to cast votes through their mobile phones, a method no other political institution in the world has tried before. The leadership election was based on votes cast by party members, party delegates and ordinary citizens who had voluntarily signed up to cast their ballots. Some 90 percent of them voting by mobile phone. The introduction of mobile voting, unprecedented in a party leadership election, has played a "revolutionary" role in encouraging mass participation. Lee Cheol-hee, vice head of the Institute for Democracy and Policies, called the experiment part of the evolution of Korean party politics. He said political parties, criticized for being insular and isolated from the public, are expanding their turf by reaching down to the grass root.

In Canada, Election laws changing to reflect Twitter reality
Faced with new practices, some laws appear increasingly obsolete. This is the case of the law which prohibits to disseminate to the public the result of an election in an electoral district before the close of all polling stations. This is the case of Canada. This rule is "outdated and inapplicable" and will soon disappear. Canada did not actually afford to retain information in a country with no fewer than six time zones. Because when Canadians located west of the country voted, the results are already known on the east. In France, this situation will inevitably resurface during the next presidential election. In a few months, French people - whose millions are on Twitter - will be called to the polls to elect the President of the Republic.

A week in e-Democracy: the last 100 days

France, USA, Russia ... voters in these three countries are going to the polls this year. Is Internet will play a role i these elections?

The last 100 days
We enter the last hundred days of the electoral campaign for the first round of the French presidential election of April 22. A timing that will take us to June 17 for the second round of parliamentary elections, a long time to explore and analyze all that officials are imagined to mobilize voters online. Reuters published an interesting file (. Pdf, in French) questioning the role that Internet will play in this election.

French Socialist candidate adopts the Obama method
To mark the 100 days of the campaign,  the socialist candidate team sends e-mailing inviting French people to "become a volunteer for Francois Hollande," inspired by the successful campaign of Barack Obama in 2008. During the socialist primary, nearly 700,000 email addresses were collected before being qualified by a team of twenty people, late December. Today, they are asked if they wish to take action closer to their home, going door to door, putting up posters or organizing dinners apartment.

To be a hero of the web will be enough?
Ron Paul, "the young and the Web hero" as the title of an article in the French magazine "L'Express", failed to win the New Hampshire primary, in United States. Those were based on analysis of "AllFacebook.com," which pointed out that data from three different companies highlight this influence of the candidate on the web, to bet on his victory are for their expenses. But with over 20% of the vote in Iowa and in New Hampshire, the Texan remains a phenomenon to follow.

Opening of Putin's website campaign
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched his website campaign for the presidential election of  March 4. Putin2012.ru shows, of course, his biography and his proposals but offers a particular section, "Changing Russia together," where visitors can make their own proposals. It did not take more than a few hours, as reported by The New York Times, for the initiative turns against him, much comment inviting him to step down now.

A global study minimizes social networks influence
A study conducted in 31 countries by KPMG revealed that while 86% of people are connecting regularly on social networks, only one third admits to being influenced in their decisions. However, the study was conducted to measure the influence of advertising on the purchasing activities of users of social networks (. Pdf).

The 5 myths of Arab Spring
The Washington Post publishes a contribution of a professor at Stanford University, Fouad Ajami, who write about "the five myths surrounding the Arab Spring", a year after the revolution in Tunisia. Among them, the idea of ​​"Revolutions Facebook and Twitter." "Mohammed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian street vendorwho set himself ablaze, didn’t have a Facebook page. He had a sense of righteous anger and despair. We should rein in the technophilia: Internet penetration in the Arab world is still modest" Ajami writes, explaining that revolutions took place in a conventional manner. But his interpretation minimizes the crucial role in mobilizing people by sending photos and video during the events. Without Internet, it is likely that these revolutions were crushed without being aware of it, here in occident.

A week in e-Democracy

The year 2012 will be eventful, with a lot of anecdotes and experiences mixing politics and digital in France, in USA and other countries. Hence the idea to summarize weekly news on e-Democracy. The use of technology, from Twitter to social networking, via  location-based networks, web and mobile services will change the way we see the world and to influence the course of events.

The main news that impressed me this week:

 Happy New Year!
Impossible to miss the wishes of candidates for the French presidential election on Dailymotion. From the socialist François Hollande (100,000 views) to centrist François Bayrou (36,500 views), Eva Joly (32,500 views), Corinne Lepage ( (6000 views), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (8000 views), Dominique de Villepin (25,000 views), Jean-Luc Mélanchon (42,000 views) or Marine Le Pen (46,000 views), spend all styles. The campaign team of the Left Front of Jean-Luc Mélanchon has done a pretty remarkable parody, " the true wishes of politicians . "

Access to the Internet is a Human Right?
No, access to the Internet is not a fundamental right, like freedom of speech and freedom of access to information, write Vinton Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet in an article published in The New York Times . "The Internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition".

These foreign presidents addicted to Twitter
The French magazine "Nouvel Observateur" published an interesting article on the use of Twitter by Heads of State and Government in the world. Furthermore, it was by Twitter that Cristina Fernandez Kirchner ( @ CFKArgentina ) thanked "God and the Argentine people of the blessings received" after his operation and the announcement that she did not have a cancer. This article reminded us that it is through the same channel that Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president had sent a message of support to the argentine president.

The Facebook page of Nicolas Sarkozy comes to life
5 posts in a week is all that over the previous three months. The Facebook page of Nicolas Sarkozy (nearly 494,000 fans to date ) reminds us that we are entering an election year.

Right-wing activists leave Sarkozy
In France, Arnaud Dassier, one of the right "activists" the most active announced his support for the centrist Bayrou. In an interview, he explained his choice by the need to "open the locked political system that prevents the integration of different people, from civil society" and "reconcile the national representation with the forces of the country ". The same week, Pierre de la Coste, Chairman of the club Hyper Republic, published an open letter to his former cabinet colleague, Henri Guaino. He announced that he will vote "for the first and probably last time" for the socialist candidate in the second round of the presidential election if Nicolas Sarkozy is present.

United States also is in campaign
The campaign for the nomination of the Republican candidate who will face Barack Obama, really began with the Iowa caucuses, narrowly won by Mitt Romney. The popularity of the former Massachusetts governor is widely reported on the Internet. His Facebook page has well over 1, 2 million fans, far more than its main competitors. The breakthrough of former Senator Rick Santorum , came second, resulted in an increase in its visibility on the Web, but according to Socialbakers , which analyzed the Facebook candidate, it is Ron Paul who would win the onine electoral battle because he is the most efficient in mobilizing its supporters. 

In 2011, protesters didn't just voice their complaints; they changed the world.

Person of the Year #Time

http://tinyurl.com/7vyrncb

What open data strategy for cities?

A study carried out among the member cities of the international network “Global Cities Dialogue for an Information Society” revealed the difficulty of cities to have a clear view of the issues of Open Data. The study was presented beginning of November in Brussels, during the Global Forum 2011, an annual international think tank on the Information Society.

Out of the 80 cities surveyed, from every continent and of different sizes, only a dozen significant examples were identified. According to André Santini, Member of the French Parliament and Mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux, who lead the Global Cities Dialogue (GCD) workgroup on "e-Government", the Open Data movement is "a new subject for the great majority of cities". "It is a subject which interests mostly the specialists and there is a certain utopian enthusiasm around it”, continued Santini, who also announced that his city would open its geographic data in 2012.

Most of the questioned cities bring forward the complexity of the subject in order to explain the absence of an open data strategy. Open data does not only raise internal organizational issues (what data to publish first and foremost? Who takes the decisions? Who does the data management?), but also legal (personal data protection, IPR) and technical issues (licence, format, dedicated platform).

The Open Data movement is well underway. It is an inevitable process, and it will require a little bit of time before all institutions, and in particular the local authorities, organize and publish their data.

• Download the speech of André Santini
• Téléchargement Open Data benchmark

Geemik or the “Usage-aided design”

How can a game contribute to strengthen democracy and citizen participation? This was the main question in the minds of the jury members of the e-Democracy Awards 2011, during the presentation of Marc Thébault last October at the City Hall of Issy-les-Moulineaux. Chief coomunications officer of Caen-la-mer region (in the north of France), Marc gave a presentation of "Geemik", a playful operation launched last September during the Fair of Caen, with the purpose to raise public awareness of NFC (Near Field Communication), the mobile contactless technology.

The idea behind it was to boost Caen-la-mer’s presence (225,000 inhabitants, 29 municipalities) on the web and to accustom its inhabitants to the NFC issues. An exhibition stand which had as motto ”Devenez accro aux jeux de l’agglo” (Get addicted to the games of our city) presented four funny games, available for testing on eight touchscreen tablets. The objective was to collect a maximum number of points – either via a cityzi symbol or a QR code – in order to win many gifts. The games were also accessible online on the geemik-game.com website. The game with the highest success rate among both the visitors and the internet users will be developed into a free mobile application.

It is thus trough games that the promoters of the operation want to associate the population to the digital projects of a region that was selected as leading territory of the NFC. The urban community doesn’t want to be the only one proposing or imposing services which use this technology. "We wish to work in a co-constructive approach", explained the vice-president for communications Jacques Lelandais in an interview for Blog Territorial. This device is the first piece which will allow to associate the future users in the design and development process of new future services. It’s what all the web 2.0 philosophy relies on, i.e. the development of collective intelligence.

This is the first time a conurbation uses the social networks and playful digital tools to educate the public and raise awareness of the potential and benefits of using digital technologies. As Marc Thébault put it, “The idea behind it is to pass from the Computer-aided design (CAD) to the Usage-aided design and to enable the future users of the new services created to make their voices heard”.

If only 26 written proposals were submitted during this first phase of the project, its designers are convinced that "the intelligence of a territory is always collective" and that their goal has been reached, if the game can help raise people’s interest and make them participate.

You can check out below Marc Thébault’ presentation:

Geemik or the “Usage-aided design” 

Cristina Kirchner re-elected as President of Argentina, a country with more than 40% of Facebook users

On Sunday, October 23rd, 29 million voters in Argentina were called to vote for the presidential and legislative elections. The outgoing President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected from the first round with almost 54 % of the ballots. In office since 2007, she becomes the first woman to be re-elected President in Latin America.

Earlier this month, Hugo Passarello Luna, director of the website Argentinaelections.com, had surprised the audience during a round table on e-democracy organized at the Microsoft headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, explaining how new technologies had changed the way of making politics in his country, where 64 % of the population is connected to the Internet and 41 % are regular Facebook users.

 

 

You can check out his online presentation below.

Argentina Elections

From e-government to We-government

Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej are the founders of “Personal Democracy Forum”, a “conversation hub” on the future of democracy, as they like to present it. Selected by the American website PoliticsOnline, they received the International Trophy of the e-Democracy Awards 2011 which took place last October in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. Sifry and Rasiej explained in front of a jury their engagement in favor of a society where each citizen can participate more easily in the public life, via his mobile phone, his social networks or his blog.

Personal Democracy Forum is “a combination of different elements”, explained Micah Sifry, with an annual conference launched in 2004 which gathers every year thousands of participants from all over the world, both from the ICT domain and all US political parties. An associated blog, "TechPresident" founded in 2007 and which registers 50,000 visitors per month, invites the bloggers interested in the political life to contribute by telling how political representatives make use of the Internet in their campaigns.

Also authors of several books among which "Wikileaks and the Age of Transparency”, the founders of Personal Democracy Forum are convinced that technologies are changing the world and democracy. According to them, today "we can speak about We-Government rather that e-Government, because more and more people discover every day the power of the Internet. And more and more people want to be heard".

The next Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) conference will take place on June 11-12, 2012 in New York City.

 

From e-government to We-government 

An increased citizen participation because of the crisis? Icelanders believe it.

Selected by the Foundation EurActiv Politech and winner of the European e-Democracy Awards 2011, the Icelandic foundation citizens.is was born after the crisis of October 2008 when the Icelandic economy collapsed. The political crisis which followed highlighted an urgent need of increased citizen participation in the public debate.

The 300,000 Icelanders were already proud to have the oldest existing Parliament in the world (established in 930). Today, they are co-writing their new Constitution over the Internet and the social networks and seem determined to make their voices heard more clearly.

Born just after the crisis, citizens.is had as objective to facilitate citizen participation, based on a quality debate between citizens. In 2009, the foundation launched a website called "Skuggaping" in partnership with the Parliament, in order to open the debates to the public, authorizing comments and proposals from the citizens. A few months later, its founders, Gunnar Grimsson and Robert Bjarnason, were proposing to the political parties to discuss upon their proposals one day before the municipal elections in the capital, Reykjavik. Around 40 % of the voters asked their questions online and debated upon the proposals put forward. As a result, the City decided to launch a participative website and to discuss officially about the priorities proposed by the citizens themselves, via the website "Betri Reykjavik" (A Better Reykjavik). The budget of Iceland for 2012 will therefore be drawn up in accordance to the proposals put forward on the website.

The next project, to be launched at the end of 2011, is called "Your priorities” and is a platform open to all the countries worldwide, inviting the citizens to share their priorities. A first version has already been tested in Greece, and “a lot of constructive ideas were generated via the website” (e.g. “The Church has to pay taxes like everybody else”).

Gunnar Grimsson and Robert Bjarnason accompanied by Oskar Sandholt came to Issy-les-Moulineaux last October to present their initiative in front of the jury of the e-Democracy Awards.

The foundation citizens.is

• Iceland wins Award for exporting Democracy (The Reykjavik Grapevine)
• Population, a tool for democracy (eyjan.is)
• Democratic expansion wins an international award (DV.is)
• Residents win a prize (mbl.is)