Testing Tech for Consensus in a Purple Town
How a radical experiment in participatory democracy came to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
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Learning the Politics of “Digital Dissensus”
From the Golden Globes stage in December, at the height of the #MeToo moment, Oprah Winfrey delivered a speech that sounded downright presidential: “A new day is on the horizon,” she said. Soon after, #Oprah2020 began trending on social media platforms. Wearing black, watching the #GoldenGlobes, listening to President Oprah...
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When it Comes to Fixing Politics, Tech Needs a Reality-Check
A few months after the 2016 election, in a sterile conference facility in San Francisco, two prominent CEOs squared off presenting opposing visions of how technology could heal what ails Democrats. The first speaker envisioned a world where technology would radically scale the number of people who engage in politics....
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Breaking Bread and Bridging Differences
Three projects tackle partisanship and attempt to reclaim civility in a divided America
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Coding for a World Run by Liquid Democracy, Powered by Blockchains
What a time to think outside the nation-state, as North Korea taunts “American bastards” with intercontinental ballistic missiles; as the Trump administration escalates immigration arrests to an unprecedented rate; as migrants and refugees pour into Central and Eastern Europe; as the United Kingdom trudges towards Brexit. It is a time...
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To Beat Trump, Dems Must Become “Peer Progressives”
Progressives are turning to peer networks to organize the resistance against Trump. But how prepared is the Democratic Party to be transformed into a “peer progressive” political party?
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Here Are the Personal Democracy Forum 2017 Panels
This year at Personal Democracy Forum we will have more than two dozen breakout panels across the two days of the conference, loosely organized into six tracks: Movement Organizing, Tools and Skills, Civic Tech, Media Innovation, Security and Privacy, and Ideas and Provocations. Here’s your guide to what’s on tap,...
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How to Resist the ResistBot
Imagine that you are a person who wants to do something useful about climate change, particularly by getting your Members of Congress to pay attention to the issue. Along come some techies, and they give you ClimateBot, a tool that makes it “insanely easy” to convert your text messages into...
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How Movements Organize Now: Notes on the Challenges of Rapid Growth
If you haven’t noticed already, we are living through a movement moment. Triggered by the election of Donald Trump and his combustive personality and policy moves, millions of Americans are in motion, forming and joining groups, rallying, signing and sharing petitions, and searching for ways to demonstrate their opposition. Thousands...
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When to Bring a Petition to a Trump-Fight
Where online petitions help marshal an army of protesters or shift the media narrative, they will be more relevant and valuable than ever before.