On Slashdot!

Julian Sanchez' ArsTechnica story on the opening plenary session is on Slashdot's front page as McCain vs. Obama on Tech Issues, submitted by eldavojohn

"Ars is running a brief article that looks at stances from Chuck Fish of McCain's campaign and Daniel Weitzner from Obama's in regards to technical issues that may cause us geeks to vote one way or the other. From openness vs. bandwidth in the net neutrality issue to those pesky National Security Letters, there's some key differences that just might play at least a small part in your vote. You may also remember our discussions on who is best for geeks."

w00t, w00t!

jon

PS: please see the CFP 2008 coverage page on the wiki for other coverage of this and other panels.

PS: To answer the obvious question that's already come up in the Slashdot thread: the Clinton campaign was invited to send a representative as well but couldn't make the scheduling work.

CFP08 Feedback/CFP09 thoughts?

Everybody knows that directly after a conference, while we're still recuperating and it's all fresh in our mind, is the best time to gather feedback and thoughts about next years' conference -- which is going to be in Washington DC in spring or summer 2008, specific date still TBD.

Please use this thread for feedback, ideas of what you want to see more or less about, thoughts about topics and formats for workshops or tutorials, and anything else about the conference that crosses your mind.

Signature thread for the open letter to the presidential candidates

The first step of Dear Potus 08 is an open letter from CFP attendees and our allies to the presidential candidates, asking for their help in sparking a national discussion.

• If you'd like to make a short (150 words or less) statement as part of signing on, please use this thread. (You can also put your name down on the wiki, and we'll circulate some paper signature sheets at the conference on Friday.)
  
• Please use the discussion and dissent thread for additional discussion -- and if you choose not to sign on, please let us know why!
  

Final draft:

May 23, 2008

Dear presidential candidates:

We call on your help to seize the momentous opportunity that the 2008 elections provide to spark a nationwide discussion on how information technologies (IT) and the knowledge economy impact traditional policy areas such as education, health care, social welfare, and civil liberties.

Our "Dear Potus 08" project is a series of web-based, interactive and open letters to the next President. This work, along with the accompanying broad dialog online and off, will cover topics that touch everybody in our nation, and in the process both engage and educate the public as well as industry and policymakers.

The topics we'll be discussing include

• Creating a safer Internet for children and adults -- addressing such issues as cyberbullying, phishing, hacking, and cyberterrorism -- while also preserving freedom of speech and privacy
• Reducing identity theft by leading consumer protection initiatives, including education, best practices, and -- where appropriate -- regulation
• The role of copyright, patents, trademarks and also alternatives to intellectual property in fostering innovation and creativity in a peer-to-peer-based democratic culture
• Using new technologies effectively to reduce health care costs and improve medical care and service without compromising patient privacy and creating security risks
• Enabling access to technology and knowledge for all Americans, investing in bridging the digital divide and considering accessibility, interoperability, technology education in and outside schools, and training in technological design and regulation
• Protecting privacy via comprehensive U.S. privacy legislation based on fair information principles, applying to governmental and private surveillance and data collection, and how this should be harmonized internationally

The participatory open letter format, along with accompanying discussions in online and offline forums, allows citizens to engage in the political process in a more deliberative way. We hope to pave the way and refine the methods for ongoing interactive communications between the general public and our government in the new administration. This effort will also help people develop a shared national vocabulary while gaining a deeper understanding of the complexities and challenges of the role of technology in the issues and concerns of Americans.

If you think this is a valuable goal and interesting approach, you can assist us by highlighting the importance of these issues, and your positions, as you're campaigning. Just as importantly, please challenge the media -- "old" and "new" -- to cover the issues with the depth they deserve and the attention currently paid to the sound-bite and horse race aspects of the campaigns.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We look forward to hearing what you and the technology policy experts in your campaign think of it.

Signed,

see the wiki page for the current signature list

Discussion/dissent thread for the open letter to the presidential candidates

The first step of Dear Potus 08 is an open letter from CFP attendees and our allies to the presidential candidates, asking for their help in sparking a national discussion. The current version of the letter is here.

Update, May 27: see the press coverage by Elise Ackerman in the San Jose Mercury News

Please use this "discussion and dissent" thread for additional discussion -- and if you choose not to sign on, please let us know why!

If you'd like to sign on to the letter, please use the signature thread or add your name directly to the letter on the CFP community wiki.

More coverage!

• Is Barack Obama a Mac and John McCain a PC?, by Jim Puzzanghera on the Los Angeles Times "Top of the Ticket" blog, May 21.
• Computer Programs Decide Humans' Fates, Set Social Policy, Panelists Say, by Ryan Singel on Wired's THREAT LEVEL, May 22
• Campanha debate futuro da web, by Renato Cruz on Estadão.com.br, May 22
• CFP08: Dear Potus, by Renato Cruz on Estadão.com.br, May 22
• Former Prosecutor: ISP Content Filtering Might be a 'Five Year Felony', by Ryan Singel on Wired's THREAT LEVEL, May 22
• The future of political dirty tricks and deception online, by Julian Sanchez on Ars Technica, May 22
• A Human Face and Due Process Online, by Aldon Hynes on Orient Lodge, May 23

And as before, if you're blogging about CFP -- or if you see other coverage -- please add it to the wiki. Thanks!

Internet Freedom & Censorship

Don't miss the sessions tomorrow on bloggers in Iran and measuring threats to online internet freedom

Of interest to those attending the session is the new publication - The Internet Freedom Alert an ongoing publication that covers online developments related to censorship, Internet Governance and freedoms online. The alert is a bi-weekly summary of the bookmarks posted on internet freedom on Delicious

Coverage for May 21

• Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive, by Markus Beckedahl on netzpolitik.org, May 21
• Presidential panel liveblogged at dailykos by Ben Masel, May 21
• CFP08: Neutralidade de rede, by Renato Cruz on Estadão.com.br, May 21
• Presidential Campaign Reps at CFP 2008, by Jeremy Duffy, May 21
• McCain Campaign: Telecom Amnesty Requires Hearings and Apologies for Spying, by Ryan Singel on Wired's THREAT LEVEL, May 21
• Obama and McCain Surrogates Describe Two Very Different Tech Presidents by Nancy Scola on Personal Democracy Forum's TechPresident, May 21

If you're blogging about CFP -- or if you see other coverage -- please add it to the wiki. Thanks!

Get it on Slashdot!

1. ????
2. Get it on Slashdot
3. Profit!

What techniques make it more likely for larger blogs to cover your story -- or link to you?

It's an example of Charismatic Content ... an important question for activists ... and something that several of us tried to solve last year at CFP as part of the Stop Real ID Now activism campaign, where despite working with the EFF, ACLU, and having folks like Bruce Schneier at the conference, we just couldn't get the story picked up by Slashdot until the very last moment.

So let's figure it out. And in the spirit of learning by doing, as an initial experiment, we're going to focus on Slashdot. Can we them to pick up Mike Godwin's recent article for Jewcy, I seem to be a verb: 18 years of Godwin's Law?

Initial ideas are on the CFP community wiki. Your thoughts welcome -- either here on the blog or the wiki!

PS: We'll also be discussing this at the social network workshop on Thursday

CFP08 on Twitter!

For those who have a twitter account, you can sign up to use this by 'following' the CFP08 channel at http://twitter.com/cfp08.

For those who have never used twitter - this is seriously the simplest technology you will encounter in a while. http://twitter.com/.

No trolling, flaming, and hate speech, please

With any luck at all, we'll be having some heated conversations about controversial topics. Please show respect for other participants, even if you disagree with their ideas, and for the readers of this blog. And please avoid trolling and flaming, as well as various forms of hate speech: racism, sexism, homophobia, trans-phobia, attacks on any religion or nationality, etc. etc.

Of course, the blogosphere being what it is these days, some people will probably ignore this. If they do, please don't respond to attacks; and please don't feed the trolls.

For definitions and additional discussion, see the resource page on dealing with hate speech, flaming, and trolls.

CFP coverage in the blogospheres, press, etc.

Blogging about CFP? Or have you seen some articles or posts about CFP?

We're tracking CFP coverage on the wiki. Please contribute!

Also, if you're blogging about CFP -- or adding entries to digg, del.icio.us, or other sites, please remenber to use the tag cfp08. Thanks!

Schedule for Social Network workshop

The schedule for Thursday's Workshop on Activism and Education Using Social Networks is now up on the wiki.

9:00 - 9:15 - Introduction by Deborah

9:15 - 9:45 Eric - the ACLU's experiences with activism and education campaigns

9:50 - 10:20 Jon - examples of social network activism, trolls, flaming, etc.

10:20 - 10:45 - Alex - Facebook

10:45 - 11:00 open discussion, Q & A

11:00 - 12:30 - multiple simultaneous hands-on sessions: create profiles, explore various social networks, Greg on promoting books, questions, other topics based on participants' interests

12:30 - 1:30 - lunch break

1:30 - 3:00 - multiple simultaneous hands-on sessions, create profiles, explore various social networks, Jon on dealing with trolls (etc.), questions, other topics, other topics based on participants' interests

3:00 - 3:30 - afternoon break

3:30 - 5:00 - closing discussion, led by Elizabeth: brainstorming - questions going forward, including how best to evolve social networks for activism purposes, and countering legislative threats

Resources on hate speech and trolls

One of our goals for the Dealing with hate speech and trolls module I'm leading at the social network workshop next Thursday is to create a useful resource page. There are a lot of techniques that can help bloggers and moderators; and call me an optimist, but I really believe a shared understanding of past thinking and research in this area, and the facts and different perspectives in a lot of real-world experiences, can make a huge difference.

We'll hopefully have an online component to the workshop; specific technology (and the exact time of this session) still TBD.

But why wait? The resource page is up on the wiki now, with eight tips, links to a half-dozen experiences (including Kathy Sierra, Blackamazon, my own writeup of a successful community defense against trolls), some good references including foundational work from Susan Herring and Clay Shirky, and a selection of "best practice" moderation policies and tactics.

If you've got other suggestions, please add them -- directly on the wiki, or as a reply here.

And please also send this send this link around to others who might be interested .... Hate speech and trolling are huge problems right now in many areas of the web, and pooling our knowledge is a good first step for making some progress on it.

Dear Potus 08

Update, May 27: see the initial open letter to the presidential candidates, press coverage by Elise Ackerman in the San Jose Mercury News, and the overall Dear Potus plan.

From the in-progress page on the program wiki:

If the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy community wrote a letter to the next President of the United States about our priorities for technology policy, what would we say -- and how would we get him or her to read it?

There's only one way to find out.

At this year's conference dinner, we will launch a collaborative effort to write a short letter to the next President from the CFP '08 attendees. We'll get these initial results up on a wiki for comments and evolution, and refine them over the follwing 36 hours. By Friday morning, if we've managed to converge on something plausible, we'll start circulating the current draft for signatures. At the end of the conference, we'll mail the current draft to the presidential campaigns and invite their response.

We'll also put it all up on the web - with a Creative Commons "by" (attribution) license - and invite others to use it for whatever purposes they want as we revise our initial draft, get broader involvement and discussion, and try to get our voice heard amidst the din of the campaigns.

We'll be using this blog as a big part of the "Dear Potus 08" project, both to update the details -- currently described as "mostly TBD" -- and to discussparticular topics. The 9.5 theses thread is the best place to get involved with the technology policy discussion right now.

In this thread, any questions or thoughts about "Dear Potus 08" -- or links to similar projects?

Clay Shirky to Deliver Closing Plenary

We are pleased to announce that Clay Shirky will deliver the closing plenary keynote at CFP Technology Policy '08.

Since the 1990s, Shirky has written, taught, and consulted on the social, cultural, and economic effects of Internet technologies and social media. His most recent book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, evaluates the significant role being played by technological advances on the formation and experience of modern group dynamics, citing such examples as Wikipedia and MySpace to demonstrate the Internet's power in bridging geographical and cultural gaps.

Shirky is an adjunct professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where he teaches courses on the interrelated effects of social and technological network topology -- how our networks shape culture and vice-versa.

See more about Shirky at Wikipedia, BoingBoing, and on the Colbert Report.