Blog - Videos from Personal Democracy Forum Conference 2012

This past Monday & Tuesday in NYC was Personal Democracy Forum Conference, the best in the game – great assemblage of tech-politics thinkers. My eighth year in a row, eight of nine, wouldn’t miss it. Good seeing friends & new colleagues. The bridges b/w the various scenes — party politics, campaign vendors, bloggers & political media, public-benefit tech advocates — has been significantly bridged by their ongoing efforts. Many mentions from the stage of #netfreedom, our sibling non-profit Fight For the Future, the FFtF-led landmark SOPA Strike protest, and American Censorship coalition (scroll down for membership) and Internet Defense League (sign up!). Plus great gender parity in speakers. Good work Micah & Andrew & team.

Please find below videos of a couple of my favorite presentations – first, Prof. Susan Crawford on telco monopolies & open access & net neutrality & the importance of laying new fiber for our infrastructure.

… such important foundational issues, we’re huge supporters of Prof. Crawford’s ongoing work. Will help spread the word as her efforts continue. Speaking for ourselves, we look forward to the day when the U.S. offers net access as a public utility.

Second, Prof. Yochai Benkler presents his research on SOPA/PIPA: A Case Study in Networked Social Discourse and Activism. Back in May, I wrote, this is one of the best articulations I’ve ever seen of our vision of participatory poiitics :: 

… third, don’t miss Jan Hemme of the Berlin Pirate Party (background article in Der Spiegel) on their setup of Liquid Feedback software for participatory democracy :: 

… often times, my public-benefit funding pitches can get overlong, so I’ll be briefer: 

Help PPF with a charitable donation, and we’ll build more free Web tools for activism like Yochai describes – libre, open-source, non-partisan, and not-for-profit. We can faciliate more distributed, stop-SOPA style activism around a broader range of bills & legislative issues. 

Plus we’re interested in working on Liquid Feedback, and as per Prof. Crawford’s forthcoming book on the crisis in American communications, in free tech tools to encourage open net access & protest telco monopolies wherever you live. So those ideas too.

Check our non-profit funding prospectus, make a tax-exempt donation to keep OC up and running this election year (we operate with just two full-time equivalents!), and be in touch to hear more about our sustainability plan & future project ideas: david at opencongress.org.