[liberationtech] Fwd: Liberation Tech would like a word.

Mon Apr 22 22:41:42 CEST 2024

Dear Lorelei,

Wow--I have never thought about the right to petition or the idea that
Facebook is an ad-based grievance processing platform.  I am fascinated by
these civic tech tools, especially pol.is.

Pol.is basically runs huge town meetings and helps people build consensus
over political divides. The US desperately needs to try these tools, and
it's great to hear that you are working on this for US Congress.

Taiwan uses them; I'm hoping to drag Audrey Tang, the brilliant digital
minister of Taiwan who is an open-source hacker, onto this list. I
wrote the piece below about civic tech in Taiwan and Estonia a few years
ago. The text might be a little rosy (Audrey should come on the list and
say if it is!) but it talks about some civic tech tools that people might
not be familiar with. And it is long; feel free to skip it.

-Kate Krauss

*Tl;dr: Long opinion piece walks through civic tech as enacted in two very
clever countries*

Taiwan withstands intense hacking and disinformation from the Chinese
government (right next door), yet it has managed to build an ecosystem of
inventive and useful tools that outmaneuver its more powerful neighbor.

To counter disinformation, Taiwanese volunteers created CoFacts
<https://cofacts.g0v.tw/> (Collaborative Facts), a chatbot that allows
people to ask questions about internet rumors without leaving their
messaging app. Users instantly receive an even-handed analysis of what is
true and false about the rumor, researched by vetted fact checkers similar
to Wikipedia editors.

Pol.is <https://pol.is/home> is an online platform that builds
understanding between people with opposing views.* Developed in
Seattle [!]* but
fine-tuned for Taiwan, the platform allows people to present their own
solutions to political problems, adding to and editing them to improve the
ideas and find consensus. (Pol.is also had a successful trial run in
Bowling Green, Kentucky town meetings.)

A Taiwanese tool called “Government Budget Maps” compares federal budget
items to the price of lunch boxes, bubble tea, or space travel so that
people can wrap their minds around the cost. Citizens are then invited to
review and rate each item.

These ideas, and many others, have emerged from Taiwan’s large and vibrant
culture of civic hacking--a movement of volunteers, known as G0V
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G0v>, who work together to develop and adapt
open source tools that advance democracy and keep the government
accountable.  G0V is building out *nonprofit* civic space.  People can
voice their opinions, but no one is trying to keep them on a platform at
any cost, enrage them with false information, or introduce them to Nazis.

Other countries are also innovating to evade trouble online. Estonia, the
tiny democracy wedged between Russia and the Baltic Sea, has fought back
<https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2020/0204/Cybersecurity-2020-What-Estonia-knows-about-thwarting-Russians>
against Russia's hacking of its bank, government agencies, press, and power
grid. Advocates formed the CyberDefense League, enlisting hundreds of
volunteers--teachers, lawyers, software developers, even priests--to
protect the country from Russian cyberattacks. The CyberDefense League
organizes emergency drills--fake disasters--that teach the government and
citizenry how to prepare for, and counter, cyberattacks. They also teach
ordinary people to protect themselves online.

Estonia convinced NATO to run joint cyberdefense exercises, drawing
thousands of participants from more than two dozen countries. The country named
an ambassador-at-large
<https://govinsider.asia/cyber-futures/heli-tiirmaa-klaar-lessons-from-estonias-cyber-ambassador/>
for cybersecurity in 2018 (Taiwan has a digital minister). Every highschool
student in Estonia is required to enroll in a 35-hour class on media and
disinformation.

These strategies are working: When Russia hacked the Ukraine in a 2017
attack that spread to 64 other countries, Estonia was largely untouched.
[I wrote this in 2020 so not sure how Estonia is doing now -Kate]

In the US, open source civic hacking groups have made inroads in
streamlining US government processes [go, Lorelei!], but for-profit
companies still dominate the public square.

[My obvious point] Americans lack nonprofit, large-scale, online civic
space in which to discuss ideas, read articles, or watch videos without
being manipulated by profit-making algorithms. Instead, Facebook and others
send us content that provokes us, because research shows this keeps us
online. The longer we scroll, the more information we reveal that the
company can monetize for ads.  Facebook alone made $134 billion this way in
2023.

So what can the US do? We must move open source, nonprofit,
democracy-oriented software projects from the sidelines to the center of
American life and its public square. Congress, which already funds some
software development—and private foundations—can scale up funding and
promote projects that support everything from civic hackathons to
publicly-minded discussion platforms.

Facebook was never built to promote democracy. The company’s central value
and operating principle has always been growth--to get as big as possible
as fast as possible. Rather than speculating about Facebook’s latest
content moderation disaster [although actually we have to do that] or
analyze Mark Zuckerberg’s personality, let’s learn from other countries
that prioritize nonprofit, online civic life.

---

On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 3:42 PM Lorelei Kelly <loreleikelly at gmail.com>
wrote:

> hi, seeing if this thread goes through this time!
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Lorelei Kelly <loreleikelly at gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 3:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Liberation Tech would like a word.
> To: Kate Krauss <katiephr at gmail.com>
> Cc: liberationtech <liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu>
>
>
> deliberative technology could take many different forms pol.is  remesh,
> Zoom, Cortico Fora...online Town Hall Models, Citizen Assemblies, mini
> publics...
> what's interesting to me is how the Right to petition function of Congress
> (First Amendment duty) was basically offshored in the 1940s to the
> Executive Branch, thereby depriving Congress of its internal barometer of
> the American people-- it gave the President power at the expense of the
> legislature, and allowed the public grievance processing space to languish
> or be privatized (Facebook).   Now much access is purchased via
> lobbying...and advocacy... the rest of us are left to vote occasionally or
> protest or spiral into frustration and even apathy (very dangerous)...
> Grievance processing on top of an advertising platform is one of the major
> drivers of dysfunction IMHO. And that's not even mentioning the Putin ad
> buys.   It has been a disaster for democracy, but specifically for
> institutions like Congress whose communications standards were literally
> stuck in the Pony Express until 2020.  Here's an article that explains
> <https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/3985778-to-protect-democracy-from-machines-congress-must-modernize-our-constitutional-right-to-petition/>this
> big picture framing.
>
> We have to actually change alot of laborious and byzantine rules, even
> laws to allow Congress to function in the modern world.  It has many
> pockets of Civil War era technology like an 1860s document format.  Fixing
> this is an institutional long game--the Right Wing has been much more
> successful at eliminating public infrastructure and then
> occupying/capturing it, selling it off to friends and cronies or
> corporations (or flooding the zone with shit aka Bannon's plan)   The Left,
> as far as I can tell has no competitive institutional plan.  Centrists tend
> to not be supported by outside or adjacent orgs.
>
> our dysfunction re: tech and institutions is partly because the first
> generation of technologies on social media fit into campaigning needs, not
> governing, which requires slow moving, slow thinking and deliberation.
> Its one reason why governing looks like campaigning now. The whole
> incentive system is streamlined for it.  Citizens United in 2010 allowed
> unlimited dark money into the blood stream of democracy.  We have to change
> this incentive.  Americans need to fall in love with their governing
> institutions again. They are so beleaguered and brittle.   And this needs
> to be paid for by taxpayer dollars,facilitated by philanthropy,  not
> privatized.   Democracy is not a pro bono project or a side gig  that you
> think about while building a Mars rocket-- Scorn for institutions is one of
> the reasons I left Silicon Valley (where I was born!)  and have never
> looked back.
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 1:10 PM Kate Krauss <katiephr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is so interesting. Thanks for sharing your fascinating insights into
>> the dynamics right now in US Congress. I can't believe we've found an
>> optimist! :)
>>
>> What sorts of things are you working on in this regard: "how to integrate
>> new forms of deliberative technology into the workflow of members so there
>> is a flow of authentic, productive, constituent driven feedback."  What
>> sorts of deliberative technology?
>>
>> In modernizing, what kinds of unmodern things go wrong, and what
>> direction are you going in fixing them? Also very interested to hear about
>> AI and LLMs in the House (seems like a Saturday Night Live skit, but also,
>> the future!).
>>
>> Thanks again,
>>
>> -Kate
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 12:33 PM Lorelei Kelly <loreleikelly at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> hi, thanks for the note.
>>> I'm glad to see this list momentum effort!  We need it!
>>> I lead the modernizing Congress portfolio at Georgetown and I'm still
>>> working adjacent to the US Congress with the members and committees who are
>>> behind this effort-- The House has passed 202 reform and modernization
>>> recommendations. It is truly an unprecedented and historic push forward.
>>> I'm now helping implement the more difficult ones that include a social
>>> cohesion aspect. (i.e. how to we integrate new forms of deliberative
>>> technology into the workflow of members so there is a flow of authentic,
>>> productive, constituent driven feedback)  Also we have gotten ahead of the
>>> curve on AI and LLMs in the House at least. I'm proud of this old
>>> institution, even though its looking like a three ring circus in the news.
>>> I think the Mike Johnson success on Ukraine funding is a very interesting
>>> turning point for looking at democracy as transcendent critical
>>> infrastructure (backed up by pandemic measures to go remote and then J6
>>> reactions to look at the information systems on Capitol Hill as national
>>> security priorities)  We have begun to marginalize deviant behavior through
>>> the process and this is a good, emergent, systems way to make sense of it.
>>> Very interesting time for all of this.
>>> LK
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 12:19 PM Kate Krauss <katiephr at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi!
>>>>
>>>> We didn't move the list, or change its name (Liberation Tech) but we
>>>> did supply a link which works (after fixing a technical glitch) that you
>>>> can share with new people who might want to join.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Kate
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 12:12 PM Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim
>>>> & Survivor of Many <gmkarl at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> > > Hi, I’m confused, what about the list this email was sent to (
>>>>> lt at lists.liberationtech.org) ?
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > What does the “subscribe” link in this email have to do with that
>>>>> list?
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > Is it a different list? The same list? Is
>>>>> lt at lists.liberationtech.org still alive or being moved?
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > Very confused,
>>>>> > > Greg
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I'd like to relate that some communities have been both disrupted and
>>>>> > defended by influences skilled in social manipulation, and that one
>>>>> > attribute of that is changing the environment.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Changing an environment can help change, whether overt or covert, be
>>>>> > adopted more readily. It can separate both from harm and fear as well
>>>>> > as familiarity and community.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > It's pleasant that changing the list name could help people feel
>>>>> safer
>>>>> > from any trauma associated with the old list, and help anything
>>>>> > targeting the old list have a little trouble finding the new people.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I hope that everybody who was affiliated with the old list succeeds
>>>>> in
>>>>> > finding the new one, but I know there will be people who don't.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Some communities often have to move in order to survive well. This
>>>>> > does sadly often mean leaving people behind.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Crazy Karl (I think I have OSDD from technologically-facilitated
>>>>> abuse!)
>>>>>
>>>>> Apologies, I did not realize it was the _same_ list the subscribe link
>>>>> was sent to.
>>>>>
>>>>> I had assumed by context that this was a new list.
>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major
>>>> commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you
>>>> moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe,
>>>> change to digest mode, or change password by emailing
>>>> lt-owner at lists.liberationtech.org.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> *Lorelei KellyResearch Lead, Congressional Modernization
>>> <https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/project/modernizing-congress/>*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *Founder, Georgetown Democracy, Education + Service (GeoDES)*
>>>
>>>
>
> --
>
> *Lorelei KellyResearch Lead, Congressional Modernization
> <https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/project/modernizing-congress/>*
>
>
>
> *Founder, Georgetown Democracy, Education + Service (GeoDES)*
>
>
>
> --
>
> *Lorelei KellyResearch Lead, Congressional Modernization
> <https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/project/modernizing-congress/>*
>
>
>
> *Founder, Georgetown Democracy, Education + Service (GeoDES)*
>
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major
> commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you
> moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe,
> change to digest mode, or change password by emailing
> lt-owner at lists.liberationtech.org.
>
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