techPresident - Over the Horizon: User-Centered Online Politics? - Comments

political speech != commercial speech

Dan Ancona — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:24:24 -0500

Micah we so so need this. My OpenCongress is super impressive and a great start, but it seems pretty clear there is room for a politics-focused social network. Facebook could do it but they don't seem inclined to. The user focus has to not just include voters & citizens: it should include campaigns & organizations, too.

But Shaun, please stop trying to stop political calls. It's incredibly damaging to our country. By equating political speech with commercial speech, you're giving people the idea that they can opt-out of democracy. All this does is strengthen the hand of any special interests rich enough to afford to buy advertisements and limit one of the very few methods that people-powered campaigns can use to effectively communicate. Really, it's the last thing we need right now.

Political Do Not Contact Registry Give Voters Opt In Choice

shimanepdf — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:36:21 -0500

Great post.

Wanted to alert you to our membership option that allows voters to control the political conversation.

For $1.24 a voter can register:

- Phone number(s)
- email address(es)
- mailing address

Opt in or out of political communications

Select how they want to be communicated to (phone, email, direct mail)

Select who they want to hear from (dems or republicans)

Select what issues they care about.

This then gives the politicians a critical data base around voters and what THE VOTER wants.

Rep. Foxx (R-NC) became the first Member of Congress to join us by taking a no "robo call" pledge and licensing the database.

--
Cheers,

Shaun Dakin – CEO & Founder
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry
-- A non-partisan, non-profit program by Citizens for Civil Discourse
Register Your Phone Number Now for Free: http://www.StopPoliticalCalls.org/

Over the Horizon: User-Centered Online Politics?

Micah L. Sifry — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:42:40 -0500

Esther Dyson argues that while Google and a host of start-ups are refining their ability to target advertising at consumers, the long-term news is in how web users are learning, through sites like Facebook, to control their own data and who gets to market to them. Is a similar trend coming to politics?