The Web changed Washington in one of most powerful uses of the Internet as a platform for collective action the world has ever seen. What does that mean for the future? This afternoon, a powerhouse panel of of big thinkers will talk about the implications of the networked protests that halted the progress of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act in the U.S. Congress. Susan Crawford, Nicco Mele, Elaine Kamarck, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and the editorial director of TechPresident, Micah Sifry, will speaking at Harvard University at 4 PM ET today. The panel will be moderated by Alex Jones, director of the Harvard Shorenstein Center Director. The livestream is embedded below. If you’re interested, video of Clay Shirky’s 2011 lecture on journalism and free speech is looping on the channel.
A display at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C.
If you’re interested in public diplomacy in the age of social media, I hope you’ll join me (either virtually or in person) at the New America Foundation next week, where I’ll be moderating a discussion on how the latest connection technologies are being applied to statecraft in the 21st century. Who’s participating and why? What have been some lessons learned from the pioneers who have logged on to listen and engage?
I’ll be talking with the following three representatives from the U.S. Department of State, each of whom will share case studies and professional experiences gleaned directly from the virtual trenches:
Suzanne Hall, Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Ed Dunn, Acting Director the U.S. Department of State’s Digital Communications Center, U.S. Department of State
Nick Namba, Acting Deputy Coordinator for Content Development and Partnerships, U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), U.S. Department of State
A new survey report on “the tone of life on social networking sites” from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 85% of American adults who use social media say people are “mostly kind” on those sites:
These attitudes will naturally be of great interest to people who work in practices that span open government to education, in terms of practitioners considering the use of social media for public engagement, civic participation, and deliberative democracy, along with grist for digital ethnographers of both the amateur and professional variety.
More stats, excerpted from the report:
“A nationally representative phone survey of American adults finds that:
*85% of SNS-using adults say that their experience on the sites is that people are mostly kind, compared with 5% who say people they observe on the sites are mostly unkind and another 5% who say their answer depends on the situation.
*68% of SNS users said they had an experience that made them feel good about themselves.
*61% had experiences that made them feel closer to another person. (Many said they had both experiences.)
*39% of SNS-using adults say they frequently see acts of generosity by other SNS users and another 36% say they sometimes see others behaving generously and helpfully. By comparison, 18% of SNS-using adults say they see helpful behavior “only once in a while” and 5% say they never see generosity exhibited by others on social networking sites.”
Today in Washington, President Obama hosted the second annual White House Science Fair. Video of his comments is embedded below, along with a storify of exhibits and students from the day.
“The young people I met today, the young people behind me — you guys inspire me. It’s young people like you that make me so confident that America’s best days are still to come. When you work and study and excel at what you’re doing in math and science, when you compete in something like this, you’re not just trying to win a prize today. You’re getting America in shape to win the future. You’re making sure we have the best, smartest, most skilled workers in the world, so that the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root right here. You’re making sure we’ll always be home to the most creative entrepreneurs, the most advanced science labs and universities. You’re making sure America will win the race to the future.
So as an American, I’m proud of you. As your President, I think we need to make sure your success stories are happening all across our country.
And that’s why when I took office, I called for an all-hands-on-deck approach to science, math, technology and engineering. Let’s train more teachers. Let’s get more kids studying these subjects. Let’s make sure these fields get the respect and attention that they deserve.
…
Now, in a lot of ways, today is a celebration of the new. But the belief that we belong on the cutting edge of innovation — that’s an idea as old as America itself. I mean, we’re a nation of tinkerers and dreamers and believers in a better tomorrow. You think about our Founding Fathers — they were all out there doing experiments — and folks like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, they were constantly curious about the world around them and trying to figure out how can we help shape that environment so that people’s lives are better.
It’s in our DNA. We know that innovation has helped each generation pass down that basic American promise, which is no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, you can make it if you try. So there’s nothing more important than keeping that promise alive for the next generation. There’s no priority I have that’s higher than President — as President than this.
And I can’t think of a better way to spend a morning than with the young people who are here doing their part and creating some unbelievable stuff in the process. So I’m proud of you. I want you to keep up your good work.-President Barack Obama
As has been true for years, there’s a robust debate in municipal information technology world around the use of proprietary software or open source. An important element of that conversation centers on open data, specifically whether the formats used by companies are interoperable and “open,” in the sense of being usable by more than one kind of software. When the license required to use a given software application is expensive, that requirement can put budget-strapped cities and towns in a difficult position. Last week, former New York State Senate CIO Andrew Hoppin weighed in on the debate, writing about proprietary software lions and bears in the Civic Commons marketplace, a new online directory of civic software.
http://storify.com/nickgrossman/proprietary-lions-and-bears-in-the-civic-commons-m.js I believe the Civic Commons Marketplace will ultimately save US taxpayers billions of dollars in government IT spending, while accelerating the propagation of technology-driven civic innovation in the bargain. I’ve believed this for a while. Thus, it’s a debate worth having; the Marketplace deserves attention, and critique.
In order to realize its potential, from my perspective as a recovering government CIO, I believe that the Civic Commons Marketplace must give equal billing to all software used in government, regardless of the software license associated with it.
Nick Grossman, the executive director of Civic Commons, chronicled the debate that Hoppin described in a Storify:
I talked with ESRI founder Jack Dangermond in September 2010 about how he was opening up ESRI and the role he saw for mapping in open government. My sense then, as now, is that this is an issue that’s deeply important to him.
There are clearly strong feelings in the civic development community about the company’s willingness to open up its data, along with what that means for how public data is coded and released. If you’re a GIS developer and have an opinion on this issue, please let us know in the comments.
At the request of the government of India, Google India and Facebook have removed content from Blogger and the world’s largest social network after a court order. As Alex Kirkpatrick reported at Mashable, “Indian prosecutors are suing a host of Internet companies on behalf of a Muslim religious leader who has accused them of hosting content that insults Islam.”
As far as I know, Facebook neither posts data of content takedown requests by region nor the content itself. If you know of such data or reports, please let me know in the comments
I’m seeing upset from Chris Sacca and others on Twitter about a disconnect between what’s on CNN now and the violence that many outlets are reporting in Syria.
It feels like 2009 the #IranElection all over again, when the world finally awoke to how the real-time Web was disrupting mainstream media by driving conversations and coverage of an historic event that the producers of cable news had failed to cover.
In the context of that disconnect, I couldn’t help but think back when I met Ann Curry at the first #140Conf and watched her respond to the volcanic surge of upset in the audience about the issue. What’s happening in Syria now deserves that coverage, with reports in the New York Times that hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children, have been killed in Homs. Thankfully, in 2012 we don’t have to depend upon CNN to cover a debate in the United Nations. We can share the news that matters on our own, including a link to a livestream of the debate in the UN.
Update: At 2:01 ET, CNN did put the news from Syria and the UN on the big screen. Fox News covered today’s election results from Nevada. And at 6, Fox News led with the news of “deadly chaos” in Syria.
The White House released a statement from President Barack Obama strongly condemning the crackdown in Syria and calling on the U.N. Security Council to “stand against” the “relentless brutality” of the regime. Russia and China subsequently blocked action. Following is the text of the statement released by the White House.
Thirty years after his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity. Yesterday the Syrian government murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children, in Homs through shelling and other indiscriminate violence, and Syrian forces continue to prevent hundreds of injured civilians from seeking medical help. These brutal killings take place at a time when so many Syrians are also marking a deeply meaningful day for their faith. I strongly condemn the Syrian government’s unspeakable assault against the people of Homs and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately.
The Syrian people demonstrated in large numbers across Syria yesterday to participate in peaceful protests commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Hama massacre. They labeled the protests, “We are Sorry, Hama – Forgive Us.” We owe it to the victims of Hama and Homs to learn one lesson: that cruelty must be confronted for the sake of justice and human dignity. Every government has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern. The Syrian regime’s policy of maintaining power by terrorizing its people only indicates its inherent weakness and inevitable collapse. Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community.
The international community must work to protect the Syrian people from this abhorrent brutality. Earlier this week, our Arab partners called on UN Security Council members to take action to support a political solution to the crisis in Syria and stop Assad’s “killing machine.” The Council now has an opportunity to stand against the Assad regime’s relentless brutality and to demonstrate that it is a credible advocate for the universal rights that are written into the UN Charter.
We must work with the Syrian people toward building a brighter future for Syria. A Syria without Assad could be a Syria in which all Syrians are subject to the rule of law and where minorities are able to exercise their legitimate rights and uphold their identities and traditions while acting as fully enfranchised citizens in a unified republic. The United States and our international partners support the Syrian people in achieving their aspirations and will continue to assist the Syrian people toward that goal. We will help because we stand for principles that include universal rights for all people and just political and economic reform. The suffering citizens of Syria must know: we are with you, and the Assad regime must come to an end.
It’s not clear to me what will happen — or should happen — in the stricken country next, although this Foreign Affairs analysis of what it will take to intervene in Syria offered some clarity.
Similarly, Fox News has reports of unrest in Syria at the top of FoxNews.com, with 2 of the last 10 @FoxNews tweets covering the story.
Syria just isn’t on television right now.
In 2012, we the people can now choose to focus attention upon news that matters around the world if we choose, regardless of the choices of producers in the control rooms of television stations. This is precisely the kind of conscious consumption that I believe Clay Johnson describes in his excellent new book, “The Information Diet.”
I hope that, as the hype grows in the lead up to tomorrow’s Super Bowl, we use our collective influence to raise awareness by sharing “what’s happening.”
UPDATE: As several people quickly pointed out to me, Al Jazeera English’s strong coverage of the Middle East shouldn’t be forgotten nor go uncited. Unfortunately, most American citizens do not have the option of tuning in AJ English, although people with broadband Internet access can stream it to their computers or iPads, via their app, as I did during the height of the Egyptian uprising in Tahrir. Here’s their report on the media blackout in Syria:
UPDATE: Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa highlighted (via Twitter, appropriately), Reuters has been reporting on Syria this week as well. While Reuters does not have a cable news network quite yet, they are moving strongly into online video and social news, with the introduction of Reuters Social Pulse. De Rosa liveblogged the UN vote and shared a link to this video reporting on escalating violence in Syria:
UPDATE: Below is video of the statement of U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to the Security Council. And yes, the video is hosted on CNN.com, though I have not seen it broadcast on either CNN or Fox News today.
UPDATE: Mark Follman, a senior editor for Mother Jones, shared this “explainer” (again, via Twitter) of what’s happening in Syria. The post includes a lot of links to learn more.
There are lots of views into engagement on Twitter, but we have the data to give a unique view into what it looks like from the @whitehouse perspective.
We’ve tracked their activity for the last couple years using ThinkUp to analyze and publicly release large datasets. We decided it might be nice show how the White House engaged their audience last year — without resorting to cheap gimmicks like linkbait infographics.
As Baio points out, if you want to work some mojo on this data set, you can download the .CSV file and have some fun. Kudos to the Expert Labs team for making both the open data and visualization available to all.
If Google and Facebook used 
E Pluribus Unum 