Posted on October 3rd, 2012 by Craig Newmark
Hey there, folks – here's the deal: It's really important that we get out there and vote. But there are some steps that you'll need to take to get there. It's pretty simple though, and I've been working with a bunch of organizations who are doing real good work and really have their boots on the ground.
My team and I have created a Voting Resource page at http://craigconnectsvoters.org/ for anyone who is looking for answers, or where to turn when it comes to voting this November.
I really feel seriously that this really is our civic duty, a shared responsibility to our communities and families to vote.
Register to vote, and commit to vote. It's easy to do, and you have lots of options and resources.
Posted on September 27th, 2012 by Craig Newmark
Hey there, folks – here's the deal, over some years my team and I have been helping build networks across the world, or small parts of it, to give people a voice who've never had it.
We've done this by funding tech labs around the globe. Ranging from San Francisco to Kenya, a Beduoin village in Israel, to Haiti and India, and the Palestinian West Bank; this is a really big deal. It's important that people have access to the voice that they may not have otherwise.
I'd like to share our first growing map of these places that have been funded. The good folks at Inveneo, Organic Health Response, Tomorrow's Youth, and others have played a big part in this – couldn't have done it without them.
I'd like to say that the sun never sets on the Nerdish Empire…
Posted on September 19th, 2012 by Craig Newmark
Two big events happen 25 September, and I'd like your help celebrating both.
It's my mom's birthday.
Help her celebrate it by checking out National Voter Registration Day and committing to register and committing to vote. Take a look at their Facebook page, too. And to see what people are already Tweeting about the day, check out #925NVRD.
My deal is that people across the world remind me that the US really is "the shining city on the hill."
I really feel seriously that this really is our civic duty, a shared responsibility to our communities and families to vote.
Some politicians have tried to manipulate voting laws for their benefit, that's not right. We need integrity in our elections and voting that's free, fair, and accessible.
If I've ever helped you find a job or a place to live, I don't need or want anything for myself, just please pay it forward this way.
Register to vote, and commit to vote.
I personally recommend choosing the option to vote by mail, which you can do in most states. That's how I've voted for pretty much twenty years, sitting down with some extra info, like what's the deal with city and state propositions.
The easiest way to get this done is to use one of the easy online registration systems, either based on TurboVote (via Voto Latino or Google) or Headcount, or RockTheVote. (The latter is focused on Millennials, and I'm old, really old.)
The TurboVote stuff even includes forms and stamped envelopes, and that costs around a buck.
The Election Protection Hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683), will be answered live from trained volunteer on National Voter Registration Day from 9:30 AM-8 PM Eastern. Voters can call the hotline to ask questions about voter registration, early voting, requesting an absentee ballot, or any another voting related question.
Anyway, please help me celebrate mom's birthday, and to stand up for the country, and to stand up against politicians who don't believe in electoral integrity.
More to come …
(Note to self: call mom, tell her I love her.)
Posted on September 17th, 2012 by Craig Newmark
Okay, we, the people of the Net did real well when we stopped some seriously bad law, SOPA. Now, we're looking around, trying to figure out how we can get it together so we can unite in defense of what's now being called "Internet Freedom."
My bias: I'm a nerd, highly motivated to get stuff done, have learned the hard way that I need to bridge multiple interests. That's to be fair, since part of the nerd dysfunction is to believe that life should be fair, even if it's not. Politically, I'm a "libertarian pragmatist."
Further, speaking very personally, I believe in the "shining city on the hill" thing, which means in the US we need to be real serious about standing up for basic rights. That includes the idea that a person can work hard, play fair, and have a good life. That means keeping the Net the most level playing field we can.
The deal with SOPA was that it would have changed the Internet as we know it.
What SOPA did was make it fairly easy to shut down sites with any user generated content, which could even include comments.
The big deal with the anti-SOPA movement was that the people of the Internet worked together to get something good done.
Next… how we do really get our act together.
One really good effort is the Internet Defense League. The deal is that when something needs doing, a whole bunch of good people will get the word out.
The Cat Signal on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Credit: Ben Simon, Mozilla
Lots more needs to be done, first of which will be to get the word out, and leaders in the effort are doing the old-fashioned thing, a bus tour.
That's totally timely, because political parties are in the process of adopting what they call Internet Freedom principles. Most of both parties' platforms include really good stuff, with one snag, regarding "Net Neutrality."
Net Neutrality, in simplest terms, is about providing a level playing field for all, as opposed to paying for privilege or elite status.
Net Neutrality is about fostering investment, consumer choice and free speech.
"Internet Freedom" without Net Neutrality, well, that's fake.
Denial of Net Neutrality involves granting privileges to large companies that control access to the Internet. The big companies have lobbied heavily for laws that would generate greater profits for these companies at the expense of Internet users.
Denial of Net Neutrality benefits the people that prefer to write lobbyists (and sometimes the "campaigns" of politicians as well) big checks, since the return on investment is huge.
I've been talking to people on both sides for years, focusing on fellow nerds. The two sides are actually close together, on the tech side. However, the Washington people I talk to point to lobbyists who like to pick a fight, since that way they get more billable hours, and more.
The deal is that we, the people of the Internet, need to work together, to support the people who speak on behalf of real Internet Freedom. The Internet Defense League and the Internet Bus are a good start.
Your part is to show support, starting with your social media votes, meaning Facebook and Google+ Shares, Twitter retweets, stuff like that.
Me? Nerds get done what's gotta get done.
More to come…
Posted on September 10th, 2012 by Craig Newmark
Fact-checking and Paul Ryan, BFFs by accident?
News media taking fact checking seriously?
The Paddy Chayefsky classic, Network. Which includes both the immortal "mad as hell" line, but also... "I'm a man without a corporation."
Okay, there's been a slow build to a possible rebirth of fact-checking in the news. That had been kept alive quietly by a few news outlets, mostly notably The Daily Show and the Colbert Report and media commentators including Jeff Jarvis, Arianna Huffington, and Jay Rosen in #presspushback.
(Seriously, Stewart's work, in particular, has been highly professional; note CNN leaves it there and an unedited interview with Chris Wallace.)
Recently, we saw Soledad O'Brien possibly risking her job, check out CNN Actually Fact-Checks A Politician; Hilarity Ensues.
The Paul Ryan speech has now triggered a spasm of fact-checking; perhaps the best summary was recently done by Ari Melber.
What happened?
I've been speaking to news publishers, editors, and reporters for years.
They're concerned that people don't generally trust news outlets anymore, and want help restoring trustworthiness. (I guess it's a source of desperation that they ask me.)
They're doing it quietly, since they're fighting factions that regard fact-checking and journalistic ethics as quaint relics.
However, they feel that Paul Ryan just went too far at the RNC convention. Check out: Why Paul Ryan thought he could get away with lying: 6 theories.
And Media Shift does a real good job explaining Why Fact-Checking Has Taken Root in This Year's Election:
Take Paul Ryan's convention address last week. Ryan offered several misleading statements and a few obvious lies — falsehoods that he had to know were false — although there's nothing new about politicians lying.
Just look at Ryan's fellow running mates: Sarah Palin lied about the Bridge to Nowhere in her convention address, for example, while during a nationally televised debate, Dick Cheney falsely said he had never met John Edwards, and Edwards falsely charged that the Bush administration lobbied to cut combat pay. They faced mild corrections and very little collateral damage for those high-profile statements.
This time, however, reporters did not let Ryan off the hook by noncommittally airing criticism ("opponents disagreed with his claims"), or reducing corrections to one of those stand-alone sidebars evaluating distortions ("three Pinocchios for the deficit commission history").
Instead, several authoritative accounts of Ryan's address decided that his falsehoods were a key part of the news Ryan made…
So, maybe what's changed is that surviving serious professional news people are "as mad as hell and not taking it anymore."
Beside Paul Ryan's speech, we've seen this building among the most professional people in news media, including Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, and Will McAvoy. (Yes, the latter's a fictional character, but he's been a seriously inspirational force.)
It also helps that Poynter Institute, which is all about professional journalism, will be holding a conference about the restoration of journalistic ethics this fall. (Disclaimer: I'm sponsoring it.)
So the deal is that a minority of news people are risking a lot to get serious about their job.
This could be doomed, or a rebirth of news media. They need our help.
If you think it matters, tell me, and do stuff like Sharing and Retweeting the best of fact-checking. Maybe start with the links above?
