Thoughts on Free Software

I find the notion of free software with open source codes to be very intriguing, furthermore the concept of copylefts is even more interesting.  Traditional copyrght laws allows the creator of software, music, art, etc.. to deny people from reproducing, reusing, or distributing their material.  Copyleft licensing, however, gives everyone a copy of their work with permission to reproduce, alter, or distribute their material as long as they adhere to the same copyleft license.  The originating copyleft licensing scheme is the GNU General Public License which was written by Richard Stallman as a part of the GNU Project.  The GNU license essentially makes it so people wanting to provide the public with free and open source software will not be taken advantage of and have their work exploited.  I think GNU licensing is a very good thing, because it will encourage more people to create open source software, since under the licensing, it will protect the creator and ensure that greedy businessman will steal their ideas and get rich off of them.  Overall, I feel open source software and copyleft laws will do a lot to advance software and computer technology

Web Research

Group: Public Campaign Action Fund (http://www.campaignmoney.org/)

The Group:

Public Campaign Action Fund is a nonprofit and nonpartisan political group seeking to pass public financing of elections, looking to make elections more fair and balanced.  Public Campaign Action Fund is a pretty big organization especially with the media attention they have received and they currently have over 70,000 online members.  They are funded by donations and have a strong reputation in the activist community.

The Website:

The site is very professional and easy to navigate.  The main page includes a news feed and links to the organization's blog, donation page, mission statement, and bills they are trying to pass.  The group wants the website to e a resource for helping their cause and spreading their message

Online Activism:

Public Action Campaign Fund uses their site to reach out to it's members by making it interactive and allowing viewers to see their blog and current bills they are working on.  They reach out to non-members by providing a wealth of resources and info on their cause.  The website is basically asking it's readers to read the info they provide and formulate an opinion on the matter and if they chose to get involved, they provide the necessary elements.

Critique:

Overall, the website is pretty effective.  The content is fair and balanced and well written.  The text is readable and the site is easy to navigate.  The tone is scholarly and the group takes their goals very seriously.

CONCLUSION:

I think that Public Action Campaign Fund is definitely meaningful activism because not only are they trying to unite the online community, but they are also out there in washington D.C. actually making a difference and trying to use the system to their advantage

Group: Annenberg Political Fact Check (http://www.factcheck.org)

The Group:

Fact Check seeks to provide the truth in the midst of the current day and age of propaganda.  Furthermore, they seek for holding politicians accountable for their actions and statements.  Fact Check provides a detailed write-up on all major claims and advertisements made.  They are a formal group and receive funding from the University of Pennsylvania as they are a part of the larger group, the Annenberg Foundation.  They have a very strong image in their field as they are associated with the very well known Annenberg name.

The Site: 

Their website has a simple yet effective design focusing primarily on the articles their writers are producing.  It is primarily composed of a feed to their articles, but the site also features their mission statement, info on their staff, and contact information.  The site is very easy to navigate and the group wants the site to be a hub for their information.

Online Activism:

The site reaches out to members by having easy accessibility to all of their articles written as they are primarily a media group.  They reach out to nonmembers the same way.  One problem with their site is that it's not very interactive and they do not offer an area for people to comment on their articles.  The site is primarily asking the reader to question what they are told and to get both sides of the story and formulate their own opinion

Critique: 

The website succeeds because the content is well documented and well written, furthermore the set up of the site is very simple, yet easy to navigate and filled to the brim with information.  The tone is scholarly, yet accessible and the text is very readable.  All of the aspects effectively help to convey the group's message.

Conclusion:

Annenberg Fact Check definitely constitutes as effective online activism.  The main goal of Fact Check is to inform people on the truth and to take away the media spin, and they do an effective job at that

Cyberactivism, Introduction/Chapter One -- Notes

The introduction and first chapter of "Cyberactivism: Online activism in Theory and Practice" by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers focus primarily on explaining how the internet has influenced the way activists go about creating political and social change.  Furthermore, they also focused on the legitimacy and effectiveness of online activism and comparing and contrasting it to real life activism.  In addition, the author also looked at the efficiency of online petitions.  On one hand, online petitions allow activists to spread their petitions to many more people through the internet.  On the other hand, some sites such as petitiononline.com lack the credibility that real life petitions have as it's hard to monitor if all of the signatures are legitimate and people aren't signing multiple times   Overall, I found the most interesting part of the text to be the story of how when yahoo acquired geocities and changed their terms of service to say that anything you post on your geocities belongs to yahoo.  When this happened Jim Townsend started a boycott of geocities and used the internet effectively to actually get Yahoo!, a large multimillion dollar company, to change their terms of service.  This story shows how you can effectively create change using the internet

Project Idea

For my project I plan to research the involvement and influence of the online community on the 2008 election. With the rise of blogging sites, social networking sites, and youtube, the internet has given a new voice to the people and it is heavily influencing this years primaries and more than likely will be very influential in next year's general election. We saw the beginings of this in the '04 primary where Howard Dean, one of the initial Democratic front runners, gained major popularity and started his initial rise (and subsequent fall) to the top of the democratic party by starting an online movement. With the rise of youtube in 06' and gaining popularity and accessibilty of the internet, the web has been even more influential on the '08 election. Republican candidate Ron Paul's campaign was almost solely internet based which resulted in him fairing considerably better than most people expected and gaining an outstounding 4 million dollars in donations in one day. Furthermore, many scathing political smear ads (esp the hilary clinton 3 am ad and the obama ad that was a spin off of the famous mac ad from the 80's) have been made exclusively for youtube and have recieved many hits, which have heavily influenced voters especially with clinton and obama's neck and neck race.

Egypt bloggers prepare second strike on regime

Sorry, for being so late on this one. But I was browsing google news and discovered this story entitled "Egypt bloggers prepare second strike on regime", story can be found here (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hOFEsjEDDvEraJGGY_VDdNaflEUQ) Eygptian citizens have been turning to the web in order to make a difference in their country. Egyptian bloggers are now calling for a strike on May 4th using the social networking site: Facebook. So far, over 64,000 people have joined the group calling for the strike. Initially the date was set for April 6th but that didn't materialize as planned so the group has organized another strike on May 4th, the date of their President: Hosni Mubarak's birthday. The central force for the strike is the high inflation that exists in Egypt and the lack of subsidized bread. The online activism has already been recognized by the Egyptian authorities who have imprisoned several bloggers who were at the forefront of the first strike and threaten to jail anyone who participates in the next. While timecanonly tell what will become of this, it is clear that the internet can be used effectively as a tool for social change and a forum to express their opinions on their state.

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