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This is civic tech: Make the time to read Steven Levy’s lovingly detailed portrait of Carl Malamud, the one-man maelstrom behind many successful and ongoing campaigns to make government and the laws it makes more open. “The civic and the technical became melded in his approach,” writes Levy. Malamud is currently enmeshed in several lawsuits brought by standards organizations upset that he is publishing their codes (which have the power of law) freely online.
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With the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump just two weeks away, we at Civic Hall are proud to present “Rethinking Debates: A Mini-Conference” next Monday, September 19, from 9am-1pm. Featuring the release of a new in-depth report on debate innovation worldwide by our public engagement fellow, Christine Cupaiuolo, the conference will focus on how debates around the world are becoming more interactive and responsive to public concerns, and how we may apply these approaches to debates in the United States. It is a free event, open to the public; RSVP here.
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Craig Newmark, a longtime friend of Civic Hall, has been very busy of late helping groups focused on protecting voter rights, and shares an update on what he’s learned.
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Tech and politics: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman is backing a Crowdpac campaign by a Marine Corps veteran that is trying to leverage GOP presidential candidate into releasing his tax returns. While the vet, Pete Kiernan, started out just trying to raise $25,000, which he promised to donate to several veterans causes if Trump complies, Hoffman has pledged a five-to-one match of whatever Kiernan raises above that amount, up to a maximum of $5 million. As of this morning, Kiernan had hit $69,000 in pledges. Hoffman is an investor in Crowdpac, and his pledge, which he probably will never have to pay out, is reaping tons of free media attention for the company. Nicely played.
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The Political TV Ad Archive, a project of the Internet Archive, launched a revamped website yesterday, with new features enabling users to track broadcast airings of presidential and senate ads in key states and enabling viewers to see which ads have been fact-checked by several journalism partners, Nancy Watzman blogs.
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While there has long been attention to the risk that voting machines could be hacked, Seth Rosenblatt writes for The Parallax that more attention needs to be paid to the security of the vote databases where totals are tallied.
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What sharing economy? Tech critic and New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas praises Airbnb for owning up to its power to shape the housing marketplace, which it exhibited by taking steps to address discriminatory practices by many of its hosts. He writes, “Airbnb could have stuck to a familiar line of reasoning: It is a passive bystander allowing a renter and landlord to find each other and make a private deal, with each party responsible for obeying the law. But Airbnb’s report rejected this trope of powerlessness.”
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Crypto-wars, continued: Tomorrow, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and many other allied organizations are launching a formal campaign asking President Obama to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, collecting signatures at PardonSnowden.org, Jason Koebler writes for Vice’s Motherboard.
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Media matters: The journalism crowd-funding platform Beacon is shutting down, Benjamin Mullin reports for Poynter.
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