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How Social Software Can Improve Democracy

Posted by Soulskill on from the liveblogs-from-the-senate-floor dept.

Geek Satire writes "Politics breeds cynicism; politicians seem to pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected, then break their promises to everyone. Mass mailings and faxings overwhelm their staffs, and who knows if you can tell your representatives what you really think? Experienced techie and political consultant Silona Bonewald (creator of the Transparent Federal Budget) believes that simple software solutions can fix these problems and more. O'Reilly News recently discussed with her how social software can improve democracy and leadership."

2 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Ways to get involved in civic-technology projects by taubz · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a growing but now well-established community of techies focusing on this at the federal level, especially for the U.S. Congress. There are open-source projects like my GovTrack.us http://www.govtrack.us/getinvolved.xpd and oGosh!: Open Government Open Source Hacking http://wiki.opengovdata.org/index.php/OGosh and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=45606565313.

    There's no end to what techies can do to work on improving civic life. I really encourage you to check out any of those links to get involved.

  2. Re:Improve the Republic .. not the democracy by azgard · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's actually amazing how many Americans don't understand the roots of their foreign policy. If you would have direct democracy, Osama bin Laden would never plan 9/11 - he wouldn't know who the Americans are.

    Also, people believed connection between 9/11 and Iraq because George Bush lied and emphasized it. And you are going to blame common people, rather than him, for that.

    So instead of doing something with the leaders that give people incorrect information, you argue that people who were deceived by incorrect information are the danger. This "sleight of mind" is getting really old and boring.