DLD09 live

1. Internet Politics

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   What comes next? After Obama, it's time to reflect on the campaign and the development of internet driven politics. The panel is moderated by Jeff Jarvis (Buzzmachine, Book: "What would Google do") and brings together Micah Sifrey, Randi Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Hidary and Mark Gorenberg (investor, fundraiser for democrats).

   Anecdotal examples
   Jack Hidary has a brief introduction of the power of internet driven campaigns. He talks about short brief guerilla swot teams, giving the example of a pro solar engery campaign. When government subsidies were about to end, Hidary and his team actually asked politicians in Washington DC who surprisingly said that actually no citizen had called them to state that they wanted solar energy.

   Hidary and his team formed a Facebook group and started blogging to organize people. Soon they had a reach out to more than 10 000 members which they organized into subgroups. Finally they let them call senators on different given days and ask for support for solar engery. In the end together they managed to convince politicians, so only a handful of people engaging for a cause created blogs and groups and managed to convince politicians to prolongue the solar engery support.

   Gorenberg now speaks about how important it is to target people for specific causes when asking for donations. Randi Zuckerberg, naturally, has many examples from Facebook, e.g. the causes application or the well done and very well targeted ad campaign Obama did on Facebook. While Micah Sifrey asks "Who owns all the personal data being collected? The candidates of the parties? The campaigners? Facebook?" the penal goes on to stating that the Obama campaign collected 14 millions email adresses and 4 million cell phone numbers.

   Now the future of politics in action, after the election, is discussed:
   According to Gorenberg there is at least the idea of a very open and transparent US government.
   Recently US government created a Google like search for documents. For Hidary it is very important not only to focus on the adminstration but also on "the hill", the house and the senate, thus the legislative part of the US political system which is absolutely not used to transparency. Decisions are made behind closed doors and nobody knows who senators are meeting or
   what is on their agenda. These people need to be included in a broad approach of internet politics.

   Jeff Jarvis now starts the public discussion, walks around with the microphone and questions are raised: Who owns the data being collected on Facebook? Is it not risky to rely on a system controlled by a single company to drive poltical campaigns? A difficult question nobody really knows an answer to. At least Randi Zuckerberg promises to keep this sensible issue on the agenda, promising more APIs and hoping they will not get in conflict with Chinese government. But still, she states: "A little is better than nothing"

   How can peace be organized on the internet? Sifrey admits that it 's much easier to block than to create on the internet.

   How can a disucssion on newspaper sites be canalized in a constructive way? Peer-to-peer moderation, flagging comments, setting standards.

   Johannes von Bismarckh is concerned about the internet being another mass mobilizing medium that could enable dictators like Hitler (ike he used radio), to take control: "The mass is dangerous". Both Jarvis and Sifrey disagree vehemently: Jarvis: "You cannot just take over the internet like you can take over the tv station. If you trust the people you have to trust them with the tools in their hand because the internet is in their hands." Sifrey: "The internet is about mobilization. You cannot just tell people to do what you want them to do, they need to be motivated by a cause. Dictatorship will not work like this"

   David Kirkpatrick has another good example in the end for the positive force of the people: In Italy one of the biggest groups was a fangroup for one of the biggest Mafia bosses. Soon many people gathered to form an even bigger group speaking up against the Mafia. Jarvis then closes the public part of the lively discussion which still goes on in the hallway.

   Eine deutsche Zusammenfassung der Politiksession gibt es bei Netzpolitik

   Here is the video from the internet politics session from DLD:
   

   

   Thomas Praus
   What's after the Obama campaign? This panel was about future developments, tools, boundaries and possibilities of politics online.

   January 26, 2009
   09:22 AM