[liberationtech] Would you be willing to create an online townhall for your city? Bring Americans together local-up?

[Steven Clift]

Thanks Stephen.

Key to bringing together people online city-wide for a sustained
exchange on local civic issues is strong civility and inclusive
outreach.

This is far more about the freedom of assembly based on agreed rules
than an angry free for all.

So the challenge for those coming from a "liberation" tech frame, is
accepting that unless people control their urge to use name calling or
inflamed speech (politicians are crooks, X are thugs, all police are
racist, etc.) there will be no audience. Sticking to the issues and
accepting as a participant that the rules they agreed to as a
condition of participation apply to them and the group admin has the
full right to warn or suspend them is key.

Luckily, folks are free to do as the choose (or at least freer on
their personal profiles/Twitter accounts) so they have an outlet. 99%
of E-Democracy's participants get this. The other 1% either realize
they can't control their tone/style of posting and leave or frankly do
their best and give us hell from time to time. How you say it matters
more than what you say.

So if there are others here who want to create a powerful city-wide
online space that gives members of their community - from across the
political spectrum, from native born to immigrants - an opportunity to
listen to each other AND have an agenda-setting voice on matters
before their city council, AND you can stomach Facebook Groups (the
only viable way to reach a mass of people these days unless you have a
big outreach budget), let me know. We do have over 10 cities
interested. Why not more!

Thanks,
Steve
Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
   clift at e-democracy.org  -  +1 612 234 7072
   @democracy  -  http://linkedin.com/in/netclift
   http://1radionews.com - My radio app



On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 12:07 PM, Stephen D. Williams <sdw at lig.net> wrote:
> Looks like an interesting project and approach.  In addition to this kind of
> thing, we need some ways to get people from very different areas and walks
> of life to get to know each other and to learn from each other.  In a lot of
> cases, people just don't understand each other or the complexity of their
> lives or decisions.  In other cases, people blame their problems and
> situation on others, often waiting for someone to rescue them.  In a lot of
> groups and areas, people could learn to do valuable things, start their own
> businesses, or otherwise band together to help each other and themselves.
> Creativity, knowledge, management / coaching / mentoring, and funding and
> investment could all come from areas and people that are better off on all
> of those.
>
> I grew up in a tiny town in Ohio.  I'm certain that I could move to any of
> many small communities in the US and immediately start a wide range of
> successful businesses employing a lot of people with a little investment.  I
> currently am trying to make a bigger impact than that, but there are many
> people who could do that kind of thing.
>
> When all of those factory workers were laid off over the years, instead of
> letting employment run out while they waited for a similar job to magically
> appear, they should have been doing whatever it took to get their friends
> together to do some other work.  I'm not aware that this happened
> significantly, and I'm not aware of any group that took serious steps to
> foster it.  Who is ranking things we need more manufacturing for?  Who is
> ranking need vs. training investment and content needed to create new
> employment in administrative, technical, and other areas?  Is there a
> blueprint for a call center or daycare or vocational college like training
> that people could step into quickly?  Even if narrowly trained, allowing
> that cognitive and arbitive potential to languish is a great waste.  And
> leads to political gaps.
>
> sdw
>
>
> On 11/9/16 9:22 AM, Steven Clift wrote:
>
>
> OK, that was quite the night.
>
> We talk about how social media has been used as a wedge in this
> campaign to divide our country. Can we use it top-down nationally to
> bring us together across those divides? I say no - the most partisan
> will drive the 80% in the middle away and cause us to stick to our
> filter bubbles.
>
> All across this country via Facebook Groups, NextDoor, and other
> platforms people are organically connecting with their nearest
> neighbors to find lost pets, talk about crime, and swap free stuff.
> And sometimes people have very dynamic discussions online about their
> most local community with -gasp- people who live near them but hold
> very different political views and are not their online "friends."
>
> On social media, these local online groups breakthrough the filter
> bubble and bridge political divides at the sub-partisan level where
> the common interest trumps partisan politics.
>
> The question is this - can we bump this up to the *city-wide* level
> and create online civic spaces that connect people across differences?
>
> Local democratically inspired spaces that are useful, agenda-setting,
> open, inclusive around the nation? And do it via highly accessible and
> popular Facebook Groups?
>
> By inclusive, I mean in many ways ... including local conservatives,
> immigrants, and more ... such that the space reflects the full
> community and not just the most involved community folks.
>
> The ten of thousands of neighborhood Facebook Groups start with a
> spark, an "admin" who creates the group and spreads the word.
>
> Now what about you and your city? Will you step forward for your city
> to convene a Facebook Group for your community?
>
> If yes, let me know: clift at e-democracy.org
>
> If there are at least ten of you, then we can launch a movement that
> just might spread to hundreds, then thousands of cities.
>
> Thanks,
> Steven Clift
>
> P.S. What I am essentially asking is if you want to help me convert
> E-Democracy's twenty years of succesful but isolated experiences with
> the online townhall - http://e-democracy.org/if - for the
> Facebook-era. Our model ONLY works with a local person willing to
> bring people together so collectively the community can not only raise
> its voice, it creates the digital capacity to listen to and respect
> each other. And not through hands-off "make it easy technology," but
> hands on effective facilitation and passionate community outreach.
>
> Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
>    clift at e-democracy.org  -  +1 612 234 7072
>    @democracy  -  http://linkedin.com/in/netclift
>    http://1radionews.com - My radio app
>
>
>
>
> --
> Stephen D. Williams sdw at lig.net stephendwilliams at gmail.com LinkedIn:
> http://sdw.st/in
> V:650-450-UNIX (8649) V:866.SDW.UNIX V:703.371.9362 F:703.995.0407
> AIM:sdw Skype:StephenDWilliams Yahoo:sdwlignet Resume: http://sdw.st/gres
> Personal: http://sdw.st facebook.com/sdwlig twitter.com/scienteer
>
>
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of
> list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe,
> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at
> companys at stanford.edu.